I've used both Gladiator matches & slavery in Sigil in my game. I don't know of any official rule on this, but I figured that if both good & evil creatures can run things in Sigil, the Lady is pretty tolerant to things that might be morally wrong. You can find anything in Sigil, so I would think it's possible to find slaves & gladiator matches (in the Night Market only).
I think Planewalker.com covered the slavery issue in their Sigil chapter.
I think Planewalker.com covered the slavery issue in their Sigil chapter.
I may have mentioned it, but I didn't explicitly have a section on the subject in the Sigil chapter. However it happens and its almost an accepted thing, even if it's not wholly kosher. Like drug use in a city, there's going to be some level of it going on almost regardless of the law or how the city handles it. And this is even more the case when you've got honest-to-God fiends walking around the city, and even holding important positions in the city as well.
"And hey, if the price is right, I know who can hook you up with most anything. Or, well... the information on what you want might just get whispered in my little ear. Not that I'd dirty my claws with such things... I wouldn't want to harm my pristine reputation."
Isn't there a large warehouse in Sigil that had been converted to a Gladiator Arena?
The Blood Pit in the Hive Ward is a warehouse that has been converted into a fighting arena. I got the impression that it was just free folk who fought for fame and fortune rather than slaves fighting, though.
Gladiatorial combat is not widespread in Sigil. What operations there might be would typically run "under the radar". The Great Gymnasium might have occassional displays and competitions of combat, but I would imagine they would not be to the death, and that the participants would usually be freemen.
I see Sigil as being a reverse image of the Roman Empire in many ways. To change the common saying to "All roads lead out of Rome", we can then contrast it with "All portals lead to Sigil". Whereas the Romans busied themseleves with expanding their Empire and exporting their customs, beliefs and government to the outside world, Sigil brings in beliefs, customs and societies from all the Planes of existence. So I'm sure that at least one culture has brought in the tradition of gladiatorial combat as a spectator sport.
So I'm just figuring out that Sigil doesn't really have any laws per se, its laws are just based on detente between the various factions, and everyone good-evil-neutral has a vested interest in keeping the status quo.
The 'lady' rules sigil and makes sure no one group gets the upper hand on the others. Power wise she has absolute authority but only exerts it when extremely necessary because for her this detente between the factions/groups is perfect.
So I'm assuming that the Lady is an overpower like Ao in FR, and that Sigil itself is huge and possibly infinite with a population comparable to an entire prime world, like Toril.
Am I also right in assuming that she bars other deitys from entering Sigil?? Or do they just not enter because once there they are completely within her power.
New question: Are ther portals connecting Sigil directly to the primes??
Sigil itself is huge and possibly infinite with a population comparable to an entire prime world, like Toril.
Sigil has boundaries, it's donut shaped. I wouldn't say it's population is like a Prime world...more like New York City. Someone else probably knows the population and dimensions of the city. I don't know if there's anything official in the books (I've never read anything) because I see people discussing this every so often.
Am I also right in assuming that she bars other deitys from entering Sigil?? Or do they just not enter because once there they are completely within her power.
Yeah, she doesn't allow powers in Sigil. Lots of gods would love to get in, and some have tried (and some succeeded (Vecna)....if you use non PS material in your PS game).
Are ther portals connecting Sigil directly to the primes??
There's portals connecting Sigil to everywhere if you can find them. The only Prime world that might be difficult to get to from Sigil is Athas, due to the "Grey"...I think that's what it was called, been years since I played Darksun.
So I'm just figuring out that Sigil doesn't really have any laws per se, its laws are just based on detente between the various factions, and everyone good-evil-neutral has a vested interest in keeping the status quo.??
Actually, Sigil does have formal laws and a system of justice. These are however indeed written and enforced by some of the factions. All but two of the factions (the Free and Revolutionary Leagues) have a representation at Sigil's "parliament", the Hall of Speakers. Some factions also fill some kind of official governmental capacity: The Harmonium being the police, the Fraternity of Order serving at the city courts, the Mercykillers being in charge of punishing convicted criminals, the Doomguard being in charge of the city Armory, the Sign of One running the Hall of Speakers, and the Fated being tax collectors and in charge of keeping various pieces of official information. (Wheter the Dustmen's mortuary counts as an official institution or simply is the most common way to handle the deceased, I know not). And plenty of people, not least of them most of the factions, would surely like to change the status quo in some way or the other, but it just isn't something that will let itself be easily done.
New question: Are ther portals connecting Sigil directly to the primes??
Tons of them. Though some worlds are not as accessible as others (Dark Sun's Athas and Birthright's Aebrynis being noteable examples of places that are hard to reach).
So I'm just figuring out that Sigil doesn't really have any laws per se, its laws are just based on detente between the various factions, and everyone good-evil-neutral has a vested interest in keeping the status quo.
Oh, there's laws. Previously the laws were inacted by the factions, arbitrated by the City Courts under the rules of the Fraternity of Order, enforced by the Harmonium, and punishment handled by the Mercykillers.
However, since the Faction War dissolved the official power of the factions, the city has undergone some changes. Those laws and institutions are still in place, but the factions no longer have official sanction over them, or a direct hand in leading them. For instance, the city courts are an institution unto themselves, with judge positions being held by the Dabus, or a small minority being appointed by the Sigil Council. The Prison and Barracks are being run, not by the Harmonium or the (now defunct) Mercykillers, but by the Advisory Council's appointed and/or hired personel. A lot of the current people, simply by their abilities and knowledge are former or current members of the old factions. However the old factions, as organized groups, have no official say in the running of things.
The 'lady' rules sigil and makes sure no one group gets the upper hand on the others. Power wise she has absolute authority but only exerts it when extremely necessary because for her this detente between the factions/groups is perfect.
More or less yes.
The Lady controls the portals, and blocks gods and similar beings from entering Sigil. Otherwise, She doesn't have much of an active hand in running the city at all. However if those running the city end up causing too much strife, open conflict, or if one person or group gets a stranglehold on the affairs of the city, She has in the past stepped in and eliminated them one way or the other in short order.
So I'm assuming that the Lady is an overpower like Ao in FR, and that Sigil itself is huge and possibly infinite with a population comparable to an entire prime world, like Toril.
We don't know. There have been very vague insinuations of The Lady acting outside of Sigil, which would make her something more than an overpower, or less than one. However The Lady brutally kills anyone who worships Her, so that sort of eliminates the idea that She's a deity. Simply said, we don't know what She actually is, and people who tend to investigate The Lady or the past actions of Her Serenity, tend to either vanish or go insane. She's the respected and revered protector of Sigil, Her Serenity, and most folks leave it at that and simply respect what few tenets She has established over the millennia.
Sigil has been measured before, though each time it seems to differ slightly. The Lady can expand the diameter of the city as needed, move buildings, streets, etc seemingly at whimsy just as She controls the portals. However land is at a premium in Sigil (perhaps with the exception of the Slags and portions of the Hive), and it's not cheap to buy at all (and is held in the hands of a very select group of people).
Am I also right in assuming that she bars other deitys from entering Sigil?? Or do they just not enter because once there they are completely within her power.
Yes, though there are loopholes around this. Proxys of a deity may enter, but not avatars. Those proxy's however walk a very fine line when in Sigil and they tend to watch what they do very carefully so as not to overstay their welcome. Ignore 3e rules that automatically give proxies a divine rank, because otherwise about 4 people in Sigil can no longer exist there anymore ;)
As for the loopholes, you can enter Sigil as a mortal and subsequently become a deity once inside Sigil. This has happened before, and both times the new deity was almost instantly, and unceremoniously ejected from Sigil. (the module 'Harbinger House' was one instance, and 'Die Vecna Die' was the other. HH was a PS module, and DVD was a piece of trash that disregarded core principals of Planescape, to say nothing about raping Ravenloft as well. Thankfully it hasn't been considered canon for the most part, and nothing that happened in the module has been repeated in 3rd ed except for Vecna being a deity now. No mention of the events in Sigil, none of the cosmology changes in DVD are reflected in the cosmology changes between 2e and 3e, etc).
New question: Are ther portals connecting Sigil directly to the primes??
Portals in Sigil go anywhere so long as you find them and have the right portal key to activate them. Most of them are not named or specified, but I can think of some portals to Toril/FR, Krynn, Oerth/Greyhawk, and even Athas (there's a refugee enclave of Athasians in Sigil, though it seems likely that the portal to Athas from Sigil is only rarely active)
What happened in the Faction war, the factions went toe to toe.? Why, how? etc...?
So maybe the 'lady' just is sigil... She kills those who worship her though. This must in some way make her beholden to them or force her to choose a portfolio and get out of the neutral protector of sigil biz...
Hey, where is Gothic Dan by the way, he hasn't posted anything on the FR for ages? he always cracked me up in a very woe is me its hard to be twenty years old tragically hip kind of way
What happened in the Faction war, the factions went toe to toe.? Why, how? etc...?
Faction War was the culmination of a large number of interconnected metaplots in the Planescape line. However it was only intended to be approx. 1/3 of what was eventually planned, though none of the other material was written when Planescape was folded back into the main DnD line.
The loose synopsis of what happened:
The Shemeska the Marauder Synopsis of the Faction War
Duke Rowan Darkwood of the Fated was behind the instigation of it all. The man's hubris got the most of him and took down the factions one by one. He instigated open war amongst the other factions while at the same time he managed to garner some measure of control over the Mercykillers.
Under the pretense of marraige, Alisohn Nilesia of the Red Death ordered her faction to follow Darkwood's orders like her own. After that happened Darkwood sold everyone's favorite barmy tiefling factol into fiendish slavery (they never did say just who she was sold to...) to get rid of her.
Darkwood's real obsession however was something known as the Labyrinth Stone. Uncounted thousands of years ago, an unknown mage came to Sigil opening claiming he would cast down The Lady of Pain. For several days this went on and The Lady did nothing. The unknown mage was on the verge of 'something' when The Lady appeared before him in the Ward of Masks (archaic name) and they both vanished.
Only some time later did any in Sigil know the victor when The Lady reappeared unscathed. Rumor held that she had bottled the mage inside a great black gem, called the Labyrinth Stone and cast it out into the planes.
Thousands of years later, another monstrously powerful mage named Shekelor, said to have been factol of the Incanterium at the time, (though that link to the Incantifers may be screed) announced his intention to leave Sigil, find the Labyrinth Stone that contained the trapped soul of that ancient mage who had challanged The Lady and some say nearly succeeded.
Shekelor vanished into the lower planes, most say Pandemonium. Most forgot about him, so did his own faction. But then he reappeared in Sigil through some previously unknown portal from Pandemonium, screaming in agony and glowing from the inside like his guts had been lit aflame.
He managed only to scream out, "THE SPIDERS!!!" and drop a handful of gems from his hands before he was incinerated by flames from the inside out, leaving nothing but ashes.
Rumors spoke much of what indeed happens to those who would claim to challange Her Serenity...
Darkwood knew of these incidents by his own research into Sigils misty past, looking for any clue into a weakness of The Lady. Then the Stone was brought to him and it all began...
Darkwood was able to make some mental connection to whomever was locked inside the stone. He felt a being of utterly immense power inside, but somehow a sense of fear at his touch. Perhaps the being had gone mad in its containment.
Darkwood with the Labyrinth Stone openly challanges The Lady in the streets of Sigil, and is instantly mazed. The stone falls from his grasp and is recovered by a street urchin and passes through numerous hands.
Darkwood's contingent Wish takes effect, but by some quirk of magic, or the Mazes, or more likely The Lady's Will he is released from the Mazes, but hurtled backwards in time.
Wandering the streets of Sigil in a daze, claiming to be Factol of the Fated he is taken away by the Bleak Cabal to the Gatehouse and locked into the Irrevocably and Criminally Insane Ward.
And there he stays for centuries, unaging and losing his sanity. Knowing the future however, he rants and rambles about future events that hold remarkably true. The Bleakers don't know what to do about him, and he eventually outlives them all and becomes known as The Oldest Barmy.
Deep in the gatehouse, methodically keeping track of the date on the stone walls and his own skin, he feels the approaching of the time when he was mazed. He feels the closeness of the Stone, and endlessly screams over and over again, "I feel it! It is happening again! It is happening again! I am the chosen one!"
As the Faction War unfolds, for the second time in Gifad's life, the name he was given during his years of confinement, he escapes the gatehouse and eventually recovers the Stone.
The other factols are all mazed, except for Rhys who prematurely left Sigil (feeling something ill approaching from the Cadance of the Planes), Sarin who was assassinated, and Hashkar who was killed near the end of the war.
Both Tanar'ri and Baatezu forces enter Sigil and fighting rages across the wards, and The Lady at first does nothing.
And then every single portal in Sigil seals itself. No escape, no entry, no water, and no air. The city can survive for no longer than a few weeks at most.
At the same time, a Yugoloth citadel build into the depths of Undersigil, and the massive dreamwalking artifact used to spy upon the residents of Sigil therein is destroyed. The Temple of Eternal Darkness it was called I believe.
And oh yes... A'kin the Arcanaloth, the friendly fiend is revealed to be the editor of the Factol's Manifesto.
Gifad with the Stone begins to trace the patterns of a gigantic rune of a spell, the Sigil spell, traced into the streets of the Market Ward / Ward of Masks by the wizard trapped into the Labyrinth Stone.
He finished the spell and reaches into the stone, instantly extinguishing the life of the mage trapped inside. A voice screams in agony and anger from within, "YOU FOOL!" as it dies to power the spell.
But before the final word can be uttered, The Lady appears and Gifad / Darkwood vanishes a second time, hurled once more by The Lady into the utter utter past.
He awakens, not remembering his name, or where he is or what he was. Only that a man known as Darkwood was responsible for his pain. Only knowing that in a city shaped like a great ring, a bladed woman mocks him.
He is sold into fiendish slavery, but does not break and eventually is sold to a mortal wizard. He begs of the wizard to teach him magic, and bemused the wizard does so.
He rises in power, learning magic from across the planes. Eating magic, breathing magic, working dweomers of such power that none before had seen such things. And he discovers a city, shaped like a ring atop an infinite spire.
And he travels there to find the woman he hates above all else. The one who was responsible for this Darkwood and his slights towards him.
He screams that he will see The Lady brought low, and then she appears, floating before him, serene and emotionless. The Dabus alongside her translates her words to the mage, "And now I bind you within a prison of your own making. Only you may release yourself, and then only from without."
And locks him within the black gleaming gem known hence as the Labyrinth Stone.
Back in the present:
The Lady reopens the portals and appears with a single Dabus to each newly elected factol of the factions of Sigil, and to the cell leaders of the anarchists to announce the following, "This city no longer tolerates your faction. Abandon it, or die." and vanishes.
Most factions leave sigil, or renounce their faction status, and all no longer hold official stations in the power structure of Sigil.
The Sigil Advisory Council is created, and the guilds of Sigil begin to fill the power vacuum along with powerful bloods like Jeremo the Natterer, Estevan the OgreMage, Zadara the Titan, and everyone's favorite Arcanaloth, Shemeska the Marauder the King of the Crosstrade.
And five years after the faction war, give or take a bit, PS3e picks up.
*bows down before the FW designers, Ray Vallese and Monte Cook*