Some points that were unsaid: LoP can annihilate deathless beings, her shadow flays people on touch, she has unmade a god that tried to take control of her portals, barred *every* pantheon from Sigil, punishes anyone who worships her or tries to bring divine beings into the city, or tries to shift its alignment from true neutral. Or those foolish enough to stand in her way out in the open. She has turned an army of glabrezu demons into basically soup with a glance in the adventure "Die Vecna Die!" where the adventure simply states she does not care about stat blocks or character sheets. In Sigil the phrase "Walk into the Lady's Shadow" is slang for suicide or such tendencies, because of the above. TLDR: Thou Shalt Not Mess With the Lady of Pain.
Thing is. Lady of the Pain does patrol the streets of Sigil once in a while. Nothing like patrol car in the streets, but she's a constant looming reminder of the factions that she's always watching. It doesn't have to be some super epic moment, but as she passed by everyone knows not to pay attention, just be on your way, keep on your things, she won't stand in your way and DON'T even try to make way for her😂 Just. Keep. Walking. (Again, depends on how DMs intrepid her. Simply saying what's described in Uncaged.)
That's the way it was written before. Planer berks would point and wonder loudly "Who is that?" If they were lucky a friendly passerby would tell them to shut their bonebox, look at something else, and keep walking.
The mysterious and powerful entities such as the Lady of Pain in Planescape or the Dark Powers in Ravenloft, are indeed concepts designed to maintain balance and consistency in Dungeons & Dragons settings without breaking the players' immersion with metagaming explanations. These entities are, in a way, personifications of game mechanics or balance mechanisms. They play a vital role in preventing certain imbalances or unwanted interactions within the settings, preserving the integrity of the stories and player immersion. By using these entities, game designers can create in-game limitations that maintain the cohesion of the game worlds and prevent potential issues or imbalances from occurring. This allows players to explore and interact with the settings without encountering logical contradictions or situations that compromise the fun of the game.
I've been a Planescape fan for almost the entire time I've been a D&D fan...and I AM JUST NOW REALIZING THAT THE LADY OF PAIN SENDS PEOPLE TO THE FREAKING BACKROOMS!
I really like the idea that the Lady of Pain is the highest authority in terms of interplanar politics and laws, someone even the gods and their emissaries have to abide to.
If I remember well in the older editions, the maze punishment was because you were a real threat toward Sigil and/or the Lady. And people who had a cult toward the Lady where simply "magically" (for a lack of a better word) and instantly skinned to death as an answer to their prayers. I may totally be wrong though. But if I am right, then why changing an already super cool and badass lore? (This question works for so many other aspects of D&D)
iirc it was implied somewhere the lop is something akin "the dark powers" that are behind the mess that is ravenloft or "the serpent" which is an entity that was mentioned maybe once in a massive 2e adventure where vecna tries to usurp the lady
"She has always been there" Not true. Previous lore pretty strongly implied that he wrestled power from another previous "rightful" ruler of the city. Some claim this was Aoskar, others claim that Aoskar came later and tried to take power from HER and there was someone else, but she never was just "always there". Which makes sense because her motif "pain" has nothing to do with planar travel or portals. Which implies that she is and remains the ruler because she's stronger, and also some possible untold story about why she's there. (It's also been implied that she's a willing prisoner and Sigil gets its nickname "the cage" after her.)
I'm also a bit miffed that they portray her with a BODY - she used to be very much just floating mask + robe, and it was clearly "a mask" (whether she's a being where it's a part of her or a person wearing it), and the mask was also a symbol for Sigil. That fed popular conspiracy theories around Sigil about the Lady being an impostor, like eg: the Lady is an illusion conjured up by the Dabus; she is their queen (or that all female Dabuses look like that); she's three giant hamsters on top of each other etc. The mask is important to maintain her status as a mystery, cuz anyone could be behind it.
I don't think previous lore implied that at all. It said she killed Aoskar when one of her dabus became his priest. The implications were that up to that point people thought he might take the city from her. Not that she took the city from him.
In the earliest days of 2nd edition Planescape, our group of players were cocky, hence the reason to run them in Planescape realms. The hardest part was being mean enough to Maze the ones who were bent on finding/conquering the Lady of Pain. I've tried lots of ways to avoid the Mazes, but some players just don't learn.
I'd wager that the LoP is either 1.) An overdeity (since the 3.x book "Deities & Demigods" state that overgods are beyond the ken of mortals and don't require worship) or 2.) An ancient nameless entity from the deepest reaches of the Phlogiston that even gods fear to tread. I know there is no clear and decisive answer, but I feel these are best supported from what we *do* know about her. Given she has the power to block and even destroy gods ... whether or not that power is within her realm alone or even outside of it we don't know... but that she *can* is terrifying enough lol
She's probably not an overdiety She's only killed one god under mysterious, but very specific circumstances. Her power is nonexistent outside the city. I don't think she's supposed to be a divine being, nor does she need to be. She's powerful enough to be 'god adjacent' perhaps, but she's not a god in any fashion.
The lady doesn't control anything beyond Sigil. Sigil might be important and her power within near absolute, but her power outside its borders is negligible and she doesn't seem to care fir anything beyond its borders either. She's not equivalent to anything, she just is. She supposed to be mysterious. Very little in Planescape is or should be clear cut.
I never found out how Sigil doesn't become over crowded. Does it magically expand? is there a special barrier that prevents more than a set number of beings in it at once?
My head canon is that ppl are dying and leaving all the time. It’s expensive to live decent there and lots of portals going on for ppl desperate to leave.
The art typically shows it to be pretty crowded. Especially the poorer parts of town, there's also kind of an undercity catacombs and tunnels under the streets and areas bricked over by the dabus, where people still live.
If the D&D multiverse is a nebula structure containing all the worlds in dyson sphere crystal sphere's, and the planes are all the interconnecting sub planetoids in between, then Sigil must be the controlling network core, and the Lady of Pain is the AI running the Matrix.
@@lordnul1708 It’s been a while since I have looked at the older stuff, I just remember that they had met at one time, however I don’t remember if the outcome was predetermined or if it was up to DMs to decide.
@@lordnul1708In fairness, Vecna was very aware of that, which is why he was futzing around with the fabric of reality during that time. In a straight "fight" against The Lady, without the distraction of trying to keep the totality of existence from being torn apart, even Vecna himself knows that he would have been an iota less screwed than any of us mere mortals AT BEST.
He got into the city, made a few changes to his timeline to justify the lore change with the next edition. He made it out of a domain of dread to accomplish this.
In 1996 there was a 2nd Edition D&D Planescape novel called *_Pages of Pain_* by Troy Denning about the Lady of Pain's past. It doesn't fully describe her entire backstory, but it offers an explanation of who she was before she became the Lady of Pain, and how she came to be this enigmatic figure. If you want an earlier version of her history, this novel may interest you.
@@mrlugh Sorry. I'm not qualified to say how good the writing was, but the story exists as part of her character's history. However it's told, the story remains.
Technically Sigil is the only place that Fizban or Takhisis avatars can enter but within the cage; they truly have NO power beyond their physical forms. A working plot by fiends to kidnap Takhisis or else force her hand inside Sigil while she's there getting her Mazed and then holding her for ransom in the blood war. Fizban is pretty much the same; in Sigil you have to Behave. They have walked those streets just as mortals do. Paladine and Takhisis visiting Sigil is the equivalent of the president or the pope IRL it would be noticed; however a strict line on how that story line is played must be paid attention to. If played wrong could be a disaster. There are no actual encounter with the lady per se. She would just Maze Takhisis or Fizban if she chose or eject them if they draw her suspicions. God's and Powers use Sigil like the U.N. they can go there but its truly outside the usual parameters in terms of interaction with PCs
They say the enigma is what makes things like the Lady of Pain or the Mourning or Annam or whatever else so great, of potential unrealized. To a degree I see its worth, of withholding details so DMs can insert custom stuff, but most of the time its just an excuse to do less work and have DMs do the work instead. We could have always changed what was canon, used tables to randomize, use suggested results, or talked with others about fan theories. They are also just scared because most of the time DMs make better answers than the company could, which is why they depend on external lore like MtG to do the heavy lifting for them, or have a good balance of canon details with blank canvas moments, with creators like Keith Baker's Eberron. At the end of the day it would just also be a pain for them to actually flesh out their own worlds. Spelljammer is a perfect example of that mindset taken to the extreme with basically all of Wildspace being empty. WotC should know that we always had the ability to make custom NPCs and homebrew settings. The whole point of buying these high priced setting books is so the company can fill in the blanks so DMs don't have to do so much work crafting when we don't have the time or effort or experience in our life to spend! Yet somehow they've twisted it around to say them doing less work and us doing more work is a good thing. At least in the past editions creators had the 'courage' to add more lore, particularly of deep things like Asmodeus or the origin of the Abyss or the Raven Queen, and they always had the option of just saying it was a false tale like in MToFs and rewrite a new tale, but now they don't even do that. It reminds me of modern art literally saying a blank canvas is actually a great work of art. Its so self-obnoxious, but at least a good bit of them didn't sell off that art at absurd prices with real money. Yet more and more, especially after Spelljammer, I feel like we are getting half a blank canvas to be bought over and over. Its almost all just suggestions now, rather than hard solid foundations to rely on for DMs that can't make it all themselves. It makes it even worse with the Walled Garden money policy they have now against 3rd party content that they can't leech off of.
@@rainbowmothraleo Because it could lead to incredible adventures which they could detail and make money off of, so its a win-win. They don't even need to make it straight lore, it could simply be context clues of who or what she is, her history, her future, and so on. That is what Eberron does, it gives clues to the Mourning, and makes adventures surrounding it, like what was done with Ravenloft and Cyre 1313, and Dread Metrol: Into the Mists, while still keeping it an enigma to players and optional canons. For the Lady of Pain, it could involve grand adventures across the Outer Planes or even beyond into the Far Planes, inviting a look into the source of the D&D Multiverse and its inner workings. There can still be mysteries involving her and her role, but keeping it super blank just means more work for DMs who have to craft a bunch of stuff every single time she is interacted with beyond the normal restrictions. WotC refuses to help us with that.
@@rainbowmothraleoit’s less the lady of pain not being fleshed out but how all the deeply philosophical/ idealogical, and even political factions that had heavily amount of detail, not being fleshed out or only barely referenced. Plainscape was all about explain high concept stuff like political fighting between pantheons, alignment planer realms (5e basically removed alignment as a real concept) good vs evil as physical concept. Law vs chaos, as literal physical concepts. The canon explanation of how the planes interact with each other, Etc etc etc. it’s get pretty detailed and complicated. I bet the book does not even mention the blood war, or if it does it’s like a paragraph. In fact the lady of pain not being fleshed out in a setting where everything is extremely fleshed out was the point and why it was such a big deal.
The exit also doesn't have to have a big glowing "EXIT" sign over it. It's possible many who get mazed spend years walking right over the exit and never find it.
Weirdly, that is the correct pronunciation. The city Sigil is not named after an actual sigil symbol. I do wish they would change the spelling though! Like, Sigul or something haha
I'm pretty sure the pronunciation is a little joke by the author. There's even a bit in the original source book with a court excerpt for a Paladin that got arrested for killing some devils once found himself in town. They were willing to overlook his mistake but they couldn't overlook him calling g the city 'Sidjul' rather than Sigil.
She killed a god, but she's been there as long as anyone is aware. She was the ruler of Sigil when she killed Aoskar at least. 'Pages of Pain' implies a possible beginning for her, but it may or may not be true even the narrator isn't sure. (It's a good book, easily the best of the 5? Planescape novels)
I'm trying to see why Sigil is so great besides being a place where you can safely access portals to anywhere. What can go on there if no conflicts can happen in the city?
Not "no conflict"... More "no war". For example : Officially, Sigil is a place where the Blood War can't continue. And if the Devils and Demons are not at each other throats, they are welcomed in the City. But if they hire an agent, that hire agents to kill one Devil or Demon at the right time or destroy a convoy from a plane to Baator or the Nine Hells, who can say that it is the Blood War? The Lady doesn't block every conflict, but she makes sure that no conflict that would damage or destroy the city ever happens on Sigil's ground.
@@AnEvolvingApe It's not the quietest city in the multiverse but it is not a city with death and conflict every corners. There is some Lawfull factions that are present to put some order in the chaos. For example, there was the "Mercykiller" (as "Killer of Mercy") who were Lawful Neutral and applies a very harsh and rough justice code, in D&D 2e. Plus if you put the city at risk, you might meet the gaze of the Lady...
The city is spelled rhe same but not pronounced the same. It doesn't actually matter what you use they've just said the original book for planescape and Sigil called it that so they're respecting it
@@Lycaon1765 The creator says it is with a G sound. The fact you said that proves you're running on hearsay. It's not your fault, but please watch the D&D interviews and the Planescape documentaries on UA-cam. They talk about how the lady of pain was based on how CEO Lorraine Williams behaved walking around and how Sigil was based on their winding offices in Wisconsin, as well as pronouncing it with a G.
@Lycaon1765 The creator put a bunch of little flavor text things in the original boxed set that say the exact opposite of that. It's definitely the hard 'g' sound.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Some points that were unsaid:
LoP can annihilate deathless beings, her shadow flays people on touch, she has unmade a god that tried to take control of her portals, barred *every* pantheon from Sigil, punishes anyone who worships her or tries to bring divine beings into the city, or tries to shift its alignment from true neutral. Or those foolish enough to stand in her way out in the open. She has turned an army of glabrezu demons into basically soup with a glance in the adventure "Die Vecna Die!" where the adventure simply states she does not care about stat blocks or character sheets.
In Sigil the phrase "Walk into the Lady's Shadow" is slang for suicide or such tendencies, because of the above.
TLDR: Thou Shalt Not Mess With the Lady of Pain.
THE LADY OF PAIN
ARMOR CLASS: You Miss
HIT POINTS: All of Them
ATTACK BONUS: She Hits
SPELL SLOTS: Yes
Also, she is fond of the Dabu.
@@Wanderingsage7But what of the zugzug?
Well, the sequel to my year long campaign is taking place in Sigil and one of the core NPCs is the supposed "son" of the LOP. We'll see how this goes.
@@cheeseburgerpaladin Is he a transforming robot who runs an oil bar?
I know: Three squirrels in a cloak with a ring of levitation
3 Ratatosks* in a cloak.
Xanxost told me so.
Both these guys haven't been heard from in a month by the way.
Thing is. Lady of the Pain does patrol the streets of Sigil once in a while. Nothing like patrol car in the streets, but she's a constant looming reminder of the factions that she's always watching. It doesn't have to be some super epic moment, but as she passed by everyone knows not to pay attention, just be on your way, keep on your things, she won't stand in your way and DON'T even try to make way for her😂 Just. Keep. Walking.
(Again, depends on how DMs intrepid her. Simply saying what's described in Uncaged.)
That's the way it was written before. Planer berks would point and wonder loudly "Who is that?" If they were lucky a friendly passerby would tell them to shut their bonebox, look at something else, and keep walking.
If you completely ignore her, how do you avoid being slaughtered by her shadow?
The mysterious and powerful entities such as the Lady of Pain in Planescape or the Dark Powers in Ravenloft, are indeed concepts designed to maintain balance and consistency in Dungeons & Dragons settings without breaking the players' immersion with metagaming explanations.
These entities are, in a way, personifications of game mechanics or balance mechanisms. They play a vital role in preventing certain imbalances or unwanted interactions within the settings, preserving the integrity of the stories and player immersion. By using these entities, game designers can create in-game limitations that maintain the cohesion of the game worlds and prevent potential issues or imbalances from occurring. This allows players to explore and interact with the settings without encountering logical contradictions or situations that compromise the fun of the game.
It's comforting to know that something is absolute and unique.
I've been a Planescape fan for almost the entire time I've been a D&D fan...and I AM JUST NOW REALIZING THAT THE LADY OF PAIN SENDS PEOPLE TO THE FREAKING BACKROOMS!
I really like the idea that the Lady of Pain is the highest authority in terms of interplanar politics and laws, someone even the gods and their emissaries have to abide to.
If you stat is. They will try to kill it.
By making the Lady Of Pain not have stats, everyone knows not to mess with that character.
If I remember well in the older editions, the maze punishment was because you were a real threat toward Sigil and/or the Lady.
And people who had a cult toward the Lady where simply "magically" (for a lack of a better word) and instantly skinned to death as an answer to their prayers.
I may totally be wrong though. But if I am right, then why changing an already super cool and badass lore? (This question works for so many other aspects of D&D)
You can't talk about Sigil without talking about the Lady_________________
*Talks about the Lady* *Instantly vanishes*
iirc it was implied somewhere the lop is something akin "the dark powers" that are behind the mess that is ravenloft or "the serpent" which is an entity that was mentioned maybe once in a massive 2e adventure where vecna tries to usurp the lady
"She has always been there" Not true. Previous lore pretty strongly implied that he wrestled power from another previous "rightful" ruler of the city. Some claim this was Aoskar, others claim that Aoskar came later and tried to take power from HER and there was someone else, but she never was just "always there". Which makes sense because her motif "pain" has nothing to do with planar travel or portals. Which implies that she is and remains the ruler because she's stronger, and also some possible untold story about why she's there. (It's also been implied that she's a willing prisoner and Sigil gets its nickname "the cage" after her.)
I'm also a bit miffed that they portray her with a BODY - she used to be very much just floating mask + robe, and it was clearly "a mask" (whether she's a being where it's a part of her or a person wearing it), and the mask was also a symbol for Sigil. That fed popular conspiracy theories around Sigil about the Lady being an impostor, like eg: the Lady is an illusion conjured up by the Dabus; she is their queen (or that all female Dabuses look like that); she's three giant hamsters on top of each other etc. The mask is important to maintain her status as a mystery, cuz anyone could be behind it.
Well...they clearly retconned that eh?
I don't think previous lore implied that at all. It said she killed Aoskar when one of her dabus became his priest. The implications were that up to that point people thought he might take the city from her. Not that she took the city from him.
Whether or not it is a mask and how much of her body is shown has varied a lot even in 2nd ed and largely depends on the artist.
I'd watch this video, but I don't want to die.
Duke Darkwood would like to have a word with her.
Lady of Pain. No, MOMMY OF PAIN
The Lady is the most interesting part of Planescape as a setting for me.
In the earliest days of 2nd edition Planescape, our group of players were cocky, hence the reason to run them in Planescape realms. The hardest part was being mean enough to Maze the ones who were bent on finding/conquering the Lady of Pain. I've tried lots of ways to avoid the Mazes, but some players just don't learn.
For me it was the factions. My favorite were the sensates.
Hands up if you’ve made Lady of Pain lore for your home games ✋
no,Rather not do any lore of her.
she doesn't need any, and the adventurer certainly doesn't need to know.
I remember when Todd took the Beyond Heroes peeps to see the Lady of Pain. I think she removed Briv''s skin.
She is the representation of the center of the multiverse.
Without her, everything will collapse and nothing will survive.
That is what I think.
I'd wager that the LoP is either 1.) An overdeity (since the 3.x book "Deities & Demigods" state that overgods are beyond the ken of mortals and don't require worship) or 2.) An ancient nameless entity from the deepest reaches of the Phlogiston that even gods fear to tread. I know there is no clear and decisive answer, but I feel these are best supported from what we *do* know about her. Given she has the power to block and even destroy gods ... whether or not that power is within her realm alone or even outside of it we don't know... but that she *can* is terrifying enough lol
I like the theory that the Lady of Pain is the embodiment of Neutrality, whereas Ao is the embodiment of Law and Tharizdun the embodiment of Chaos.
@@jacobjensen7704 Ooh I like that theory.
She's probably not an overdiety She's only killed one god under mysterious, but very specific circumstances. Her power is nonexistent outside the city. I don't think she's supposed to be a divine being, nor does she need to be. She's powerful enough to be 'god adjacent' perhaps, but she's not a god in any fashion.
I think is the conunterpart of Ao, The lady is in charge of all multiverser mean wile Ao is in charge of all Gods
Ao only controls realmspace though
The lady doesn't control anything beyond Sigil. Sigil might be important and her power within near absolute, but her power outside its borders is negligible and she doesn't seem to care fir anything beyond its borders either. She's not equivalent to anything, she just is. She supposed to be mysterious. Very little in Planescape is or should be clear cut.
In my 3.5 campaign, the Sigil and the Lady is one. And each exist for each other.
Am I the only one enthralled by this setting who also DESPERATELY WANTS TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE LADY
amazing to see Ian Fidance into DnD
I never found out how Sigil doesn't become over crowded. Does it magically expand? is there a special barrier that prevents more than a set number of beings in it at once?
Yes. Sigil literally changes depending on peoples thoughts and beliefs. So yes it expands.
My head canon is that ppl are dying and leaving all the time. It’s expensive to live decent there and lots of portals going on for ppl desperate to leave.
@ataraxia7439 my canon is that it's essentially infinitely recursive.
The art typically shows it to be pretty crowded. Especially the poorer parts of town, there's also kind of an undercity catacombs and tunnels under the streets and areas bricked over by the dabus, where people still live.
She can and has killed gods.
Reminds me of the god The Lady from Discworld.
Just one. It was clearly under very specific circumstances, but since the gods don't know what those circumstances were, they are wary.
If the D&D multiverse is a nebula structure containing all the worlds in dyson sphere crystal sphere's, and the planes are all the interconnecting sub planetoids in between, then Sigil must be the controlling network core, and the Lady of Pain is the AI running the Matrix.
I hope there is an answer to her story, and its good that its being kept. But i do think its good that she's just not random.
I am the Lady of Pain, Sigil is much more brutal than explained here. So am I.
Fair.
Didn’t the “Lady of Pain” and Vecna had a fight in 2nd edition?
Calling it a fight would be giving Vecna too much credit.
@@lordnul1708
It’s been a while since I have looked at the older stuff, I just remember that they had met at one time, however I don’t remember if the outcome was predetermined or if it was up to DMs to decide.
@@lordnul1708In fairness, Vecna was very aware of that, which is why he was futzing around with the fabric of reality during that time. In a straight "fight" against The Lady, without the distraction of trying to keep the totality of existence from being torn apart, even Vecna himself knows that he would have been an iota less screwed than any of us mere mortals AT BEST.
He got into the city, made a few changes to his timeline to justify the lore change with the next edition. He made it out of a domain of dread to accomplish this.
@@Nupehaddadidn’t vacna take over the city for a brief time. Something happened where vacna actually became a real threat briefly.
In 1996 there was a 2nd Edition D&D Planescape novel called *_Pages of Pain_* by Troy Denning about the Lady of Pain's past. It doesn't fully describe her entire backstory, but it offers an explanation of who she was before she became the Lady of Pain, and how she came to be this enigmatic figure. If you want an earlier version of her history, this novel may interest you.
that trilogy was seriously the most painful literature i ever read. I would only recommend it to my enemies.
@@mrlugh Sorry. I'm not qualified to say how good the writing was, but the story exists as part of her character's history. However it's told, the story remains.
Technically Sigil is the only place that Fizban or Takhisis avatars can enter but within the cage; they truly have NO power beyond their physical forms. A working plot by fiends to kidnap Takhisis or else force her hand inside Sigil while she's there getting her Mazed and then holding her for ransom in the blood war. Fizban is pretty much the same; in Sigil you have to Behave. They have walked those streets just as mortals do. Paladine and Takhisis visiting Sigil is the equivalent of the president or the pope IRL it would be noticed; however a strict line on how that story line is played must be paid attention to. If played wrong could be a disaster. There are no actual encounter with the lady per se. She would just Maze Takhisis or Fizban if she chose or eject them if they draw her suspicions. God's and Powers use Sigil like the U.N. they can go there but its truly outside the usual parameters in terms of interaction with PCs
2:10 sounds like Monte Cooks Invisible Sun
Monte Cook worked on several Planescape Modules and Sourcebooks so it makes sense.
Monte cook is literally one of the greatest and most prolific dnd designer / writers.
They say the enigma is what makes things like the Lady of Pain or the Mourning or Annam or whatever else so great, of potential unrealized. To a degree I see its worth, of withholding details so DMs can insert custom stuff, but most of the time its just an excuse to do less work and have DMs do the work instead.
We could have always changed what was canon, used tables to randomize, use suggested results, or talked with others about fan theories. They are also just scared because most of the time DMs make better answers than the company could, which is why they depend on external lore like MtG to do the heavy lifting for them, or have a good balance of canon details with blank canvas moments, with creators like Keith Baker's Eberron.
At the end of the day it would just also be a pain for them to actually flesh out their own worlds. Spelljammer is a perfect example of that mindset taken to the extreme with basically all of Wildspace being empty. WotC should know that we always had the ability to make custom NPCs and homebrew settings.
The whole point of buying these high priced setting books is so the company can fill in the blanks so DMs don't have to do so much work crafting when we don't have the time or effort or experience in our life to spend! Yet somehow they've twisted it around to say them doing less work and us doing more work is a good thing.
At least in the past editions creators had the 'courage' to add more lore, particularly of deep things like Asmodeus or the origin of the Abyss or the Raven Queen, and they always had the option of just saying it was a false tale like in MToFs and rewrite a new tale, but now they don't even do that. It reminds me of modern art literally saying a blank canvas is actually a great work of art. Its so self-obnoxious, but at least a good bit of them didn't sell off that art at absurd prices with real money.
Yet more and more, especially after Spelljammer, I feel like we are getting half a blank canvas to be bought over and over. Its almost all just suggestions now, rather than hard solid foundations to rely on for DMs that can't make it all themselves. It makes it even worse with the Walled Garden money policy they have now against 3rd party content that they can't leech off of.
Why would you want to "flesh out" the Lady of Pain? I always thought that her whole deal was that players just can't know some things
@@rainbowmothraleo Because it could lead to incredible adventures which they could detail and make money off of, so its a win-win. They don't even need to make it straight lore, it could simply be context clues of who or what she is, her history, her future, and so on. That is what Eberron does, it gives clues to the Mourning, and makes adventures surrounding it, like what was done with Ravenloft and Cyre 1313, and Dread Metrol: Into the Mists, while still keeping it an enigma to players and optional canons.
For the Lady of Pain, it could involve grand adventures across the Outer Planes or even beyond into the Far Planes, inviting a look into the source of the D&D Multiverse and its inner workings. There can still be mysteries involving her and her role, but keeping it super blank just means more work for DMs who have to craft a bunch of stuff every single time she is interacted with beyond the normal restrictions. WotC refuses to help us with that.
@megabrowser17 to be fair, the Lady of Pain was an enigma like this from the very beginning of the Planescape
@@rainbowmothraleoit’s less the lady of pain not being fleshed out but how all the deeply philosophical/ idealogical, and even political factions that had heavily amount of detail, not being fleshed out or only barely referenced.
Plainscape was all about explain high concept stuff like political fighting between pantheons, alignment planer realms (5e basically removed alignment as a real concept) good vs evil as physical concept. Law vs chaos, as literal physical concepts. The canon explanation of how the planes interact with each other, Etc etc etc. it’s get pretty detailed and complicated.
I bet the book does not even mention the blood war, or if it does it’s like a paragraph.
In fact the lady of pain not being fleshed out in a setting where everything is extremely fleshed out was the point and why it was such a big deal.
@@AL-lh2ht yeah, that sucks a lot
Counter monkey can tell you
Alone? Perhaps he needs to reread The Lady of Pain novel.
Pages of Pain. Great book.
Ohhhhh so this is what the emperor of man kinds soul has been up to since the heresy.
What if the lady of pain is to the planes as mystra is to the weave, but on the level of Ao. They do have some similarities after all...
She's much less than that. Her power is limited to Sigil, she has no power beyond its boundaries. She doesn't seem to want any power beyond that.
I never made lore about the Lady and never will.
I don't need lore about her and my player certainly doesn't need to know lore about her.
The setting provides just enough to make her mysterious and enigmatic and that's pretty much all she needs to do her narrative job in game.
These basically the internet as a whole
The mazes are supposed to have a possible exit or its not a Maze.
The maze has a exit - but trying to find it in a maze that could be of infinite size is quite the challenge...
The exit also doesn't have to have a big glowing "EXIT" sign over it. It's possible many who get mazed spend years walking right over the exit and never find it.
Sid-jill > Siggle
The real pain is them constantly mispronouncing Sigil
Weirdly, that is the correct pronunciation. The city Sigil is not named after an actual sigil symbol. I do wish they would change the spelling though! Like, Sigul or something haha
I'm pretty sure the pronunciation is a little joke by the author. There's even a bit in the original source book with a court excerpt for a Paladin that got arrested for killing some devils once found himself in town. They were willing to overlook his mistake but they couldn't overlook him calling g the city 'Sidjul' rather than Sigil.
She has always been there? I thought she stole it from a god? I suppose planescape Torment could have it wrong.
She killed a god, but she's been there as long as anyone is aware. She was the ruler of Sigil when she killed Aoskar at least. 'Pages of Pain' implies a possible beginning for her, but it may or may not be true even the narrator isn't sure. (It's a good book, easily the best of the 5? Planescape novels)
Afk deciding if reality is worth it...
See-Jill . I'll stick with See- Jill.
Same!
I will not. Sigil will always be Sigil for me.
Yo-Yo
if it has stats we can kill it.....
If they don't have stats, you can still kill it with a mcguffin.
If I DM'ed planescape which I might she'd probably be Ao's ex-wife
Is the Lady of Pain the person who tried to push through the OGL changes?
Wait is it sigil hard g or sigil like a j? Cuz in tormet they say like a j.
The word sigil as in "an inscribed or painted symbol considered to have magical power" is pronounced like a j.
Sigil City - hard G
Sigil "Symbol" - J
The same way as gif. 😉
@@blackshard641 It's pronounced gif!
@@Deris87The city of Sigil is different from a drawn sigil, even though they are spelt the same. The words are heteronyms.
My Ex Mother in Law
I'm trying to see why Sigil is so great besides being a place where you can safely access portals to anywhere. What can go on there if no conflicts can happen in the city?
Not "no conflict"... More "no war". For example : Officially, Sigil is a place where the Blood War can't continue. And if the Devils and Demons are not at each other throats, they are welcomed in the City. But if they hire an agent, that hire agents to kill one Devil or Demon at the right time or destroy a convoy from a plane to Baator or the Nine Hells, who can say that it is the Blood War?
The Lady doesn't block every conflict, but she makes sure that no conflict that would damage or destroy the city ever happens on Sigil's ground.
@@SalemPulsifer Then combat and murder should be a regular occurrence in Sigil with all the opposing factions?
@@AnEvolvingApe It's not the quietest city in the multiverse but it is not a city with death and conflict every corners. There is some Lawfull factions that are present to put some order in the chaos. For example, there was the "Mercykiller" (as "Killer of Mercy") who were Lawful Neutral and applies a very harsh and rough justice code, in D&D 2e.
Plus if you put the city at risk, you might meet the gaze of the Lady...
@@SalemPulsifer It seems too unrealistic to me.
@AnEvolvingApe intrigue, Assasinations, small scale gang wars. The Lady doesn't care what happens as long as the stability of sigil isn't threatened.
Does the pronunciation of Sigil bother anyone else. My brain figuratively hurts every time they say it. Like when people argue over Drow…. Sig-il… 😂😂😂
You do know the city of Sigil is different from a drawn sigil, even though they are spelt the same, right? The words are heteronyms.
Why do they keep mispronouncing Sigil? It's pronounced si-jil, not sig-il.
The city is spelled rhe same but not pronounced the same. It doesn't actually matter what you use they've just said the original book for planescape and Sigil called it that so they're respecting it
It's a hard 'g' in the books. There's even a joke about outsiders mistaking the city name for the the word.
The lady of pain is WOTC that doesn’t make available every books from every editions available in print on demande format!
I hate how they say "siggal" isn't of "sijal" 😭
You do know the city of Sigil is different from a drawn sigil, even though they are spelt the same, right? The words are heteronyms.
@@bbd121 the creator of planescape says it's j sound not a g sound.
@@Lycaon1765 The creator says it is with a G sound. The fact you said that proves you're running on hearsay. It's not your fault, but please watch the D&D interviews and the Planescape documentaries on UA-cam. They talk about how the lady of pain was based on how CEO Lorraine Williams behaved walking around and how Sigil was based on their winding offices in Wisconsin, as well as pronouncing it with a G.
@Lycaon1765 The creator put a bunch of little flavor text things in the original boxed set that say the exact opposite of that. It's definitely the hard 'g' sound.
Who is the Lady of Pain?
Enter Ex Wife joke here!
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