Planescape

Planescape is a fictional campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Planescape is unique among D&D settings in that it encompasses an entire cosmology, which itself encompasses all of the other Dungeons and Dragons worlds, linking them all via inter-dimensional magical portals. Planescape, as its name suggests, is comprised of numerous planes of existence.

Contents

1 Cosmology 2 Sigil 3 Factions 4 The Faction War 5 Sects 6 Published Material 7 See also 8 External links

Cosmology

The Dungeons & Dragons cosmology as reflected in Planescape consists of a number of planes:

• The Inner Planes
• The Ethereal Plane
• The Prime Material Plane
• The Astral Plane
• The Outer Planes

Sigil

Sigil, the "City of the Doors", is located atop the Spire in the Outer Planes. It has the shape of a tire; the city itself is located on the inside of the ring. There is no sky, simply an all-pervasive light that waxes and wanes to create day and night; over the edge of the ring is an infinite, impenetrable void. Sigil cannot be entered or exited save via portals; although this makes it quite safe from any would-be invader, it also makes it a prison of sorts for those not possessing a portal key. Thus, many call Sigil "The Bird Cage" or "The Cage". Though Sigil is commonly held to be located "at the center of the planes" (where it is positioned atop the infinitely tall Spire), some argue that this is impossible since the planes are infinite in all dimensions, and therefore there can never truly be a center to any of them, let alone all of them; thus, Sigil is of no special importance. Curiously, from the Outlands one can see Sigil atop the supposedly infinite Spire.

Sigil contains an innumerable number of portals: any bounded opening (a doorway, an arch, a barrel hoop, a picture frame) could possibly be a portal to another plane, or to another point in Sigil itself. Thus, the city is a paradox: it touches all planes at once, yet ultimately belongs to none; from these characteristics it draws another of its names, "The City of Doors."

The ruler of Sigil is the mysterious Lady of Pain. The Lady is sometimes seen in Sigil as a floating, robed Lady with a face bearing a mantle of blades. The Lady does not concern herself with the laws of the city; she typically only interferes when something threatens the stability of Sigil itself. However, she is an entity of inscrutable motives, and often those who cross her path, even accidentally, are flayed to death or teleported to her hidden Mazes, lost forever. It is widely believed that she never speaks, although some unconfirmed (and, most would argue, highly questionable) rumours to the contrary do exist.

Sigil is, theoretically, a completely neutral ground: no wars are waged there and no armies pass through. Furthermore, no deities can enter into Sigil; the Lady has barred them from the Cage. Of course, Sigil is hardly peaceful; with such a condensed population, consisting of everything from devas to demons, violence is common, usually befalling the foolhardy, the incautious, or the poor. Most natives of Sigil ("Cagers") are quite jaded as a result of living there.

People coming to Sigil from the Prime Material Plane are often treated as clueless inferiors by the planar elitists who dwell there. They are thus widely referred to as the "Clueless", or more charitably, as "Outsiders".

Sigil is divided into six districts, called wards:

• The Hive Ward, the slum and the ghetto, home to the poor, the rogues, and the unwanted dregs of the city.
• The Lower Ward, an industrial district, clogged up with the smoke from the foundries and from the portals to the Lower Planes.
• The Clerk's Ward, an affluent district, home to most of the city's lower-rung bureaucrats and middlemen.
• The Market and Guildhall Wards are the home to the traders, craftsmen, artisans, guild members and other members of the middle class.
• The Lady's Ward, the richest and most exclusive section of the city, is home to the elites of society and of its government.

Factions

The Factions are the philosophically-derived power groups based in Sigil. In particular, the factions controlled, prior to the Faction War, the political climate of the city. Each of the factions is based around one particular belief system; many of the factions' beliefs make them enemies where their other goals and actions might have made them allies. Most factions are organised into covert cells for their own protection. There are fifteen factions in total, per a decree of the Lady of Pain; any additional factions emerging would be subject to her wrath. The fifteen factions are:

• Athar ("Defiers", "The Lost"), who deny not only the gods' right to pass judgment over mortals, but their very divinity. They claim that the gods (whom they call "powers") are powerful but do not deserve worship. The Athar are broadly derived from real-world atheists and agnostics.
• Believers of the Source ("Godsmen"), who believe that each life is a test, and that every person has the potential to become a god.
• Bleak Cabal ("Bleakers", "Madmen"), who deny that any belief system has any merit; as they see it, the universe has physical rules, but no metaphysical or philosophical ones, therefore any meaning in life must come from within. They are derived from real-life existentialists.
• Doomguard ("Sinkers"), who believe in the sanctity and inevitability of entropy. They see the decay and destruction of the universe as necessary; for once it is destroyed all imperfections will be gone with it, paving the way for a perfect new world.
• Dustmen ("The Dead") believe that both life and death are false states of existence, that there is a state of True Death which can only be accomplished by denying one's emotions and physical wants and needs.
• Fated ("Takers", "The Heartless") believe that those with power and ability have the right to own what they control and to take what they can from those who are unable to keep it, and that it is their right to exploit any situation to their advantage, regardless of how it affects anyone else. They are derived from real-life Social Darwinists.
• Fraternity of Order ("Guvners"), who believe that knowledge is power; they learn and exploit both the natural laws of the universe and the laws of society.
• Free League ("Indeps"), who reject the other factions and their bureaucratic, hierarchical dogmatism.
• Harmonium ("Hardheads"), who believe that peace and stability can only be estalished under one rule -- theirs. The planar faction known as the Harmonium is actually just a small part of a much larger political entity which rules over the entirety of the Prime Material world of Ortho.
• Mercykillers ("The Red Death"), who believe in justice and retribution at the expense of all else.
• Revolutionary League ("Anarchists"), who believe that social order and man-made laws are inherently corrupt and must be destroyed--though none of their members can agree on what, if anything, should replace them.
• Sign of One ("Signers"), who believe that the entire universe is a figment of someone's imagination; most of them are solipsists.
• Society of Sensation ("Sensates"), who believe that accumulating experiential knowledge through the senses is the only way to achieve enlightenment. They are broadly derived from the real-life Epicureans.
• Transcendent Order ("Ciphers"), who believe that by tapping in to the 'cadence' of the planes and acting through pure instinct they can achieve a higher state of being.
• Xaositects ("Chaosmen"), who believe that the only truth is revealed in chaos.

The Faction War

In 1998, TSR published Faction War, an adventure that effectively closed the book on Planescape as it was then and ending the product line. The culmination of several adventures leading up to that point, the Faction War brought an end to the factions' control of the city. Instigated by the power-hungry Duke Rowan Darkwood, factol of the Fated, in a bid to dethrone the Lady and rule Sigil himself, the war spread throughout the city before the Lady of Pain, with the aid of a group of adventurers (the players' characters), intervened.

The results of the Faction War, described in Dragon Magazine #315 (January 2004) were as follows:

• The Believers of the Source, the Mercykillers, and the Sign of One were wiped out in the fighting, while the Bleak Cabal, the Dustmen, the Free League, the Society of Sensation, the Transcendant Order, and the Xaositects disbanded (although many former members continue to hold the same beliefs as they did under faction rule). The six remaining factions chose to leave Sigil behind. All former faction leaders gave up their claims to control over the city, handing it over to elected civil servants.
• The Mercykillers were forced to split into two much smaller groups, the Sons of Mercy and the Sodkillers -- two smaller factions which long ago joined to form the Mercykillers. The Sons of Mercy are concerned with redeeming and rehabilitating criminals, whereas the Sodkillers believe in simply exterminating them. Both remained in Sigil.
• The survivors of the Believers of the Source and the Sign of One merged into a completely new faction known as the Mind's Eye.
• The Athar fled the city to the base of the Spire, the region of the Outlands where all magic (including that of the gods) fails, to escape the wrath of the deities whom they defied. Their membership has declined due to the isolation of their new base.
• The Doomguard was decimated in the Faction War. Most of its survivors fled to the four Inner Planar citadels maintained by the faction on the borders of the Negative Energy Plane. The Doomguard now rarely leave their citadels, making forays outside only when some great act of creation (such as the formation of a new demiplane) demands a retributive act of destruction.
• The Fraternity of Order relocated to the plane of Mechanus, where they already had several strongholds. The Guvners continue to delve into the laws of the planes and plot their eventual return to Sigil, which they still believe to be the fulcrum around which all worlds turn.
• The planar chapter of the Harmonium relocated to the plane of Arcadia. They have become less of a police force and more of a diplomatic body. The Harmonium now believes that the best way to spread order is to peacefully unite the Upper Planes under the banner of law rather than forced conversion to their ideals.
• The Fated suffered a great loss of face because it was their factol, Duke Darkwood, who started the Faction War in the first place. They've moved their base of operations to Ysgard, but have otherwise changed little in their methods.
• The Revolutionary League retreated to the plane of Carceri, where most of its cells fell into disarray. Most of the remaining Anarchists seek to return to Sigil in force to become its new rulers. Other members of the League are apalled at the thought of ruling anything and have formed a splinter group, the Second Wave; these "Wavers" take the dissolution of the factions as proof that any political structure can fall and have spread to numerous planar metropolises to stir up rebellion.

Sects

Sects are in many ways identical to the Factions, differing in that they are not based in Sigil. Sects are often highly specific to the particular planes they originate from, though historically many of the Factions were once Sects and some Sects were once Factions. A complete list of Sects is probably not possible (due the infinite multitudes of the Planes), but those documented are presented below:

• Anarch's Guild ("Groundsmen"), who control the terrain of Limbo to defend the Githzerai fortress-cities.
• Children of the Vine ("Revellers"), who believe in celebrating today and ignoring tomorrow.
• Communals ("Comrads"), who believe that all property is to be shared.
• Converts ("Chameleons"), who believe whatever they have heard most recently.
• Dispossessed ("Chippers"), whose self-imposed banishment shows their true freedom.
• Expansionists ("Growers"), who believe in gaining and holding physical and political territory.
• Guardians ("Caretakers"), who believe in Good and protection for its own sake.
• Incantifers, who believe that magic is the true form of power.
• Mathematicians ("Gearheads"), who believe that numbers can be used to find or discover everything.
• Merkhants ("Misers"), who believe that money is the only true measure of power.
• Opposers, who believe that ideological balance is achieved in the multiverse by making sure no single ideology wins.
• Order of Planes-Militant ("Bretheren"), who believe that the war against evil must be fought, not waited out.
• Planarists, who believe that the Prime Material Plane should serve the Planars, not the other way around.
• Prolongers ("Cheaters"), who believe that immortality is the true goal of life, and see no problem in taking life-force from others.
• Ragers, who believe in being stronger than everyone else, and proving it one man at a time.
• Ring-Givers, who believe that one who gives the world away will receive the world in exchange.
• Tacharim, who believe in augmenting the self through the grafting of more reliable body parts.
• Verdant Guild ("Wylders"), who believe in returning to nature.
• Vile Hunt, who believe in affirming their humanity by killing 'lesser beings.'

Published Material

Planescape is an expansion of ideas presented in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide (First Edition) and the original Manual of the Planes. When Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition was published, a decision was made not to include angelic or demonic creatures, and so the cosmology was largely ignored, being replaced (to a certain degree) by the Spelljammer setting. However, fan demand for a 2nd Edition Manual of the Planes was strong enough to justify its expansion into a full-fledged campaign setting, and so in 1994 Planescape was released. Many expansions and adventures followed, and the setting has since been updated in the 3rd Edition Manual of the Planes, the 3.5 Edition Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Planar Handbook.

In 1995, Planescape won the Origins Award for Best Graphic Presentation of a Roleplaying Game, Adventure, or Supplement of 1994.

The setting was also featured in the computer game Planescape: Torment.

See also

• Plane (Dungeons & Dragons)
• Major planar races
• Multiverse

External links

• Planewalker.com, the official Planescape fansite (http://www.planewalker.com/)
• Mimir.net, the former official fansite, now on hiatus (http://www.mimir.net/)
• Club Sensation, the only real world faction cell in existence, is a part of the Society of Sensation (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClubSensation)pl:Planescape