Planescape General and Q&A

That doesn't sound terribly low level.

If you're looking for a good place for low level adventurers to hang out, you can always go with the Outlands/Gate Towns, or some of the Upper Planes.

As for the situation you gave, I'd say that they need an artifact from a certain Prime world in order to activate a portal that they need to get through for whatever reason (this was a job they were hired to do, something from their backstory, stumble across it as a rumor while out in the city/reading archives, spot the portal opening in a sensory stone, etc etc).

I would suggest downloading the Planes of Law/Chaos/Conflict boxed sets and consulting their respective "adventure" sections for ideas on low-level adventures in the Outer Planes. There are sample low-level adventures for each of the Planes of Law, each of the Planes of Chaos, and the Gray Waste; the lattermost of these involves low-level characters speaking to a greater deity (Hades), in person, in their own divine realm, which sets quite a bar for low-level adventures in the Great Wheel.

The Eternal Boundary and Doors to the Unknown are premade modules designed to start off with low-level PCs. Some of the adventures in Well of Worlds, the Great Modron March, and Tales from the Infinite Staircase are also suitable for low-level parties.

While not quite official, FrankTrollman has some rock-solid ideas for low-level adventures in the Lower Planes here:
dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Tome_of_Fiends_(3.5e_Sourcebook)/Campaigning_on_the_Lower_Planes

The Book of Elements likewise has good foundations for low-level adventures in the Inner Planes:
dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Book_of_Elements_(3.5e_Sourcebook)/High_Adventure_on_the_Inner_Planes

Given the precedent that Planes of Conflict sets (that is, low-level adventurers heading to the depths of the Gray Waste and parleying with a greater god in person in their own divine realm), there is really no such thing as a location inappropriate for low-level PCs to delve into.

What truly matter are the stakes of the adventure (low-level PCs tend to impact the multiverse in *slightly* less meaningful ways than higher-level PCs, especially when you consider that the infamous "Squaring the Circle" is the highest-level fully-detailed official Planescape adventure) and the opponents the PCs absolutely must battle head-on (Planescape was designed for 2e, wherein "social encounters" between neophyte adventurers and tremendously powerful entities were relatively fair due to a dearth of hard-coded social rules).

Thanks, so would it be better to start the PC's off in an Outland town in search of the key and then only send them off to find the artefact once they reach level 4/5, if so what are some interesting things I could do to add flavour to the Outland town so that it doesn't just feel like a generic hamlet on the prime with a few gimmicks?

Looks like Manual of the Planes, 1st ed.

Now, the Quasielemental Plane of Dust is fleshed-out in pages 114-117 of the Inner Planes book.

Native creatures include dust quasielementals, dust animentals (elemental versions of animals, and apparently "dust wolves" are the most common of these, so the population of literal dust bunnies must be low), dust mephits, dune stalkers, sandling earth kin elementals, sandman elementals, and magic-devouring hakeashar.

Presumably, anything with "dune," "dust," or "sand" in its name can be found here, so Athasian dune freaks, dune reapers, dune runners, dune trappers, sand brides, sand cacti, sand howlers, sand vortices, and sandworms should also be fair game. Brown dragons (also known as sand dragons), dust twisters, dust wights, and dustblights would also make sense here.

It seems that creatures from the Elemental Plane of Earth such as xorns, dao, and earth elementals are frequently found in Dust, which makes sense, given that they have no breathing problems in soil and should not asphyxiate in dust either. This is not outright stated in the Inner Planes book, but I would wager that undead from the adjacent Negative Energy Plane would have an easy time here as well due to their breathless nature. Such visitors still have to worry about the passive *disintegration* effect and other dangers, but at least the Earth/NEP folks can focus on protecting themselves from those.

The Quasielemental Plane of Dust is also one of the four "home territories" of the Doomguard faction, which you can read about in pages 38-47 of the Factol's Manifesto. Their stronghold here is called Citadel Alluvius, and it is headed by Pereid, an LN female human from the prime who is a 19th-level thief in 2e and "welcomes visitors of all kinds." This would be a good base to operate from, if the party can stand the deeply eccentric and often self-contradictory faction beliefs of the Doomguard.

For a "cult who are also looking for the artifact," I see four main options.

The first is the minions of the chaotic evil archomental Alu Kahn Sang, the "Wind of Destruction," a warlord who "has managed to assemble a legion of its peers under a banner of ultimate chaos and carnage. Sang appeals to nothing more than a desire for absolute destruction and violence, but its followers find that motivation enough." If you want irredeemably evil villains, these would be ideal.

The second are the dao of the Elemental Plane of Earth. They comprise a vast empire of questionable morals and rampant slave-taking (neutral evil), yet they are in turn bound servants to the even greater empire of the yikarians (also known as yak-men). If you want the enemies to come from a regimented and hierarchal empire, these are a solid choice.

A third possible enemy would be one of the many undead who hail from the Negative Energy Plane. These could have any number of motivations, and some of the undead might have come from the very long-dead city swallowed up by Dust.

The fourth and possibly most morally ambiguous would be the Doomguard members who call the Quasielemental Plane of Dust home. The Sinkers comprise every possible alignment, from lawful good to chaotic evil, and their leader in Dust is lawful neutral. Competing with the Doomguard would present the strong possibility that the PCs are not necessarily in the right and could very well be encroaching on a faction's vague "jurisdiction," although some PCs might detest the faction's entropy-venerating ways regardless.

>recommending Frank Trollman
>for anything
Opinions disregarded.

I strongly contest and fully believe that it would be appropriate to send the party to the Quasielemental Plane of Dust even at low levels. If you would like to start off the party in Sigil, you could have the party search for a gate-key and a portal to Dust, possibly involving a favor for the Doomguard (though that is off the table if the party is competing with the Sinkers). However, it is imperative that you give the PCs some means of protecting themselves from disintegration and suffocation, such as a spell cast upon them by a Sinker or by a native of Dust.

Depending on the system you are using, it would hardly be impossible to pit the party against level-appropriate enemies from the creatures listed in . The party can fight "dust wolves," the least powerful of the dust quasielementals, minor undead riddled with sand and dust, and so on.

As for a reason to get PCs invested in searching for the artifact in the first place, this ultimately depends on what you have in mind for the greater campaign overall, and what the individual PCs' motivations are. You could leave it up to the players by asking them: "Your PC is in search of an artifact said to lie in a long-dead city swallowed up by the Quasielemental Plane of Dust. What rumors has your character heard of the relic's abstruse qualities, and why have such qualities driven your character to seek it out past the perils of disintegration and suffocation?"

Say what you will about this person, but they present workable plot hooks for the Lower Planes.

Because in an exclusively upper class area, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to easily (key word there) locate scum, villains, and people who will do things you need done easily and without question at reasonable prices.

Sure, you can get those things done as well in a totally gentirfied area, but you run the risks of being overcharged, gossip, and other issues, and it's a lot harder to make the friendly, powerful, rich neighbor who did you a favor disappear than it is the bloke in the lesser market that no one is going to give two shits about.

What did he do that triggers you so?

The catalyst shit wasn't actually his fault.

He 'fixed' 3.5 by making fighters do more damage and claimed he was the savior of fighters everywhere, then got touted on Veeky Forums as the fixer of fighters everywhere.

Damage was never the problem, of course.

>Because in an exclusively upper class area, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to easily (key word there) locate scum, villains, and people who will do things you need done easily and without question at reasonable prices.
In Sigil, however, it is relatively easy. All that is necessary is a trip to a Lower Planar gate-town of your choice, or, if one is feeling daring, a city in a Lower Plane outright.

The main benefit of living in Sigil is not the city itself, or even its inhabitants. It is having a "home base" from which one has access to nearly every other location in the multiverse. (A secondary draw for some might be the Cage's wards against deities.)

That is a premium that would surely cost a great deal in a city with a finite space, compared to the literally infinite amounts of real estate in the planes.

As the person who said that, I reccomend listening to the advice of the other poster.

As for the Gate-towns, they're all well fleshed out and have a bunch of unique aspects to them anyway - Torch is exceedingly unique, for one.

As for sending them off to find the artifact, you can do that from the start - I was suggesting that the artifact itself be the key to a portal (which has something even more interesting behind it).

Good, now convince Her Flensingness that you own land on Sigil and can therefore sell it or rent it.

Trusting demons, devils, or daemons to do your dirty work is really not a wise choice. As any wizard.

You should really play Planescape Torment - a large portion of it takes place in the Hive/Lower Ward, and it handled the parts of Sigil it included rather well.

My main issue with this is that it removes the possibility of low level play in Sigil, if not removing Sigil from play entirely by virtue of not having any place PCs could actually afford or utilize until they were exceedingly high level. If you're going to make it inaccessible to your players, then just remove it from the game.

Matters of Sigilian real estate have nothing to do with preserving the grand balance of the Cage and the cosmic fulcrum that is its physical torus.

This is why page 69 of In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil tells us about this registry in the Hall of Information in the Clerk's Ward:
>Land Registry. Provides names of Sigil landowners, along with lists of their properties. (Information may not be distributed without landowner's written permission.) Processing Fee: 5 sp.

Page 66 of the same book mentions that another service available in the Hall of Information is:
>Arranging a meeting with a wealthy landowner.

People can own land in Sigil, and I see no reason for real estate prices to *not* be monstrously high given the premium access to the multiverse's many locations that living in the City of Doors offers.

The payoffs can be quite worthwhile, on the other hand, and Sigil's information-broking underworld is already under the grip of a daemon anyway (Shemeshka, an arcanaloth).

If you would prefer a lower risk:reward ratio, you can try your luck in one of the Lower Planar gate-towns, most of which are *not* run by fiends (Plague-Mort being the only exception).

Ah, but there *would* be a way for PCs to use Sigil as home base even assuming very high real estate prices: joining a faction. As established in the Factol's Manifesto, the factions provide for their own and are willing to give places to stay to their faction members, be it in the faction headquarters themselves or a safehouse elsewhere in the Cage.

First of all, I think it's more than likely that Her Serenity doesn't want the slums removed - it's important that Sigil remain balanced in a number of ways, including having a disparity between rich and poor, because Sigil defines so much else about the rest of the multiverse.

Additionally, plenty of land in the Hive and Lower Ward belongs to people who have zero interest in selling - and plenty of the poor people there live in Flophouses and other temporary accommodation that doesn't involve owning property.

And really, you're not going to attract good buyers for places like pic related. Some parts of Sigil are actually exceedingly dangerous, and nobody with any sense wants to live there.

>First of all, I think it's more than likely that Her Serenity doesn't want the slums removed - it's important that Sigil remain balanced in a number of ways, including having a disparity between rich and poor, because Sigil defines so much else about the rest of the multiverse.
This is probably the best explanation, partially because it is a thinly-veiled "There are slums because the GM says there should be slums."

Another reason could be that real estate in Sigil is *so* expensive and yet *so* valuable (due to the location) that some people who might have been able to afford manors elsewhere have willingly opted to live in tenements in the Hive.

>And really, you're not going to attract good buyers for places like pic related. Some parts of Sigil are actually exceedingly dangerous, and nobody with any sense wants to live there.
I am not so sure about that. Some fiends might find rivers of acid and bile quaint; the buildings in the illustration do not look run-down at all, and for all we know, it could be a fiendish neighborhood.

He gave them a shitload of other benefits as well, and made a bunch of new classes that were actually on the same level as good casters.

Even with fiends liking an area, there would still be pressure on the real estate market. Plenty of fiends are happy living in the Lower Planes, and the ones ambitious enough to find a place to live there are usually unique or odd individuals (outsiders that become faction-members, for instance).

But yes, the "GM says that's how it is because it creates a more interesting environment to adventure in" is the best explanation.

It should also be noted that as an Inner Plane, the Quasielemental Plane of Dust would also be home to a handful of Inner Plane-traveling creatures, such as chososions, monadic devas, and abiorach rilmani.

One potentially humorous encounter you might include is a terribly lost and harebrained Dustman (perhaps a dust genasi) who had joined the faction purely based on its name, and is now futilely wandering the plane in search of a nonexistent stronghold of the Dustmen.
However, since belief is power in the planes, they might have caused a small outpost of the Dustmen to retroactively spawn into existence within the Storm of Annihilation (the region of Dust closest to the Negative Energy Plane), close to the Doomguard's Citadel Alluvius. The outpost might contain a garden of atramen trees, and their fruits could make a good source of atramen oil from pages 75-76 of the Planar Handbook; it could have also attracted a small host of undead from the adjacent NEP, who find the Dustman's presence to be comforting.

I must sleep very soon.

Greetings, primes. It's time for another episode of Cooking with Nana. I'm the cutest and most cunning new lord of The Fourfold Furnaces and your host, Nana.

On this episode, we will be preparing a favorite dish of mine, Fried Larval Veal, Hellfire style. All we need to start with is a cauldron for eating oil, an adjustable heat source, a clean preparation area, two bowls, and a method of procuring protomatter. Protomatter pellets are fine to use, but I prefer conjuring my own protomatter from the Ethereal Plane.

First, we're going to form the protomatter into the raw ingredients for our dish. Start by creating elf fat inside your pot. Elf fat is great for frying. It's very light, clear, and leaves a beautiful golden-brown color on fried foods. You should have about a half-inch of oil at the bottom of your cauldron by the time it is done heating.

Next, you’ll need to make a single large pyroclastic dragon egg. Just give it a sharp tap on your bowl like so and scramble it. Create four larval veal cuts from your favorite kind of larva. I like to use a little more negative energy to compensate for the lack of suffering and torment that comes with real larval veal. Fill your other bowl with bonemeal bread-crumbs. They look bone white now, but they will pick up the color of the elf fat when they are fried. Add salt, sulfur, and spices to your taste and mix with the breadcrumbs. Finally, we’re going to grind up two fresh phoenix feathers and it aside. Now we’re ready to start cooking!
Dip the larval veal in the scrambled dragon eggs until they have a nice, sticky coating of egg. Then dip them in the breadcrumb mixture. Make sure to get a nice, even coating of breadcrumbs across the surface of the veal. Set your veal cutlets in the oil now. There should be just enough oil for them to swim like so. Fry them on each side for 4-6 minutes or until golden brown.
Once they look finished, drain the cutlets on a towel and sprinkle them with a fine dusting of ground phoenix feather. Slice them into bite-sized strips and garnish each cutlet with a leaf of razorvine and viola! Your Fried Larval Veal is complete! Your guests will not be able to resist the flavor, and the spicyness of the phoenix feather will have them begging for drinks. At this point, it’s a safe bet to slip them a drink with some special drugs and turn your guests into obedient slaves.

Thanks for watching! Tune in next time for Cooking with Nana, where we will show you how to made wedding soup from godling bones!

Protomatter-based creation presents a legitimate philosophical conundrum. We know for a fact (from the 2e Guide to the Ethereal Plane) that talented magicians can permanently shape protomatter into stable aether, and from there, just about anything. Advanced applications of this magic are how demiplanes are made, and also places such as Believers' Forge.
We also know why this is thematically possible: the Ethereal Plane is the primordial font of matter and energy, the realm of unlimited potential and everything that can and will be.

However, is anything permanently shaped from protomatter turned into stable aether truly "real"? Could a substance that matches the exact elemental composition of, say, a pyroclastic dragon egg be truly considered a pyroclastic dragon egg, or can it be disqualified due to never having come from such a dragon? Furthermore, what would happen if one was to incubate the egg? Would it hatch? Would that not mean that raw life could be created from protomatter shaping?

What are your thoughts on the psionic discipline of metacreativity, which replicates feats of protomatter shaping with just as much finesse using the Astral Plane's substance of ectoplasm? Do you consider such a pretender to protomatter shaping? How do you rationalize this as possible in the first place when the Astral Plane represents thought and emotion rather than physical matter and energy?

Additionally, what is your take on a certain *other* fox-arcanaloth's cooking methods?
giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17526479&postcount=1315

>However, is anything permanently shaped from protomatter turned into stable aether truly "real"?

Of course! Well, it is real in the sense that it is tangible and useful... it's just not exactly the same as the original. Taking artistic liberties is just part of cooking with protomatter. Sometimes it's better than the original.

>Could a substance that matches the exact elemental composition of, say, a pyroclastic dragon egg be truly considered a pyroclastic dragon egg, or can it be disqualified due to never having come from such a dragon? Furthermore, what would happen if one was to incubate the egg? Would it hatch? Would that not mean that raw life could be created from protomatter shaping?

So many bothersome questions! Of course it's not exactly the same. I could make it the same if I wanted to! I could make a true pyroclastic dragon egg and give it life if I wanted to.

>What are your thoughts on the psionic discipline of metacreativity, which replicates feats of protomatter shaping with just as much finesse using the Astral Plane's substance of ectoplasm? Do you consider such a pretender to protomatter shaping? How do you rationalize this as possible in the first place when the Astral Plane represents thought and emotion rather than physical matter and energy?

I... uh... I know all about that! Metacreativity is just a neat parlor trick. It's not even worth discussing.

>Additionally, what is your take on a certain *other* fox-arcanaloth's cooking methods?

Oh... her? Well, she does have good taste, but her method of cooking is hardly original, practical, or convenient. I'm a busy yugoloth and I can't be bothered to spend 15 hours preparing barghests. My recipes are for busy people with things to do, not mangy old freaks with nothing better to do with their time.

>I could make a true pyroclastic dragon egg and give it life if I wanted to.

Even a wizards using the powerful "Demiplane Seed" or "Genesis" spells cannot create life in their demiplane. That is normally the purview of true dweomers such as "Origin Of Species." What makes you think you can create an egg that hatches into life?

>My recipes are for busy people with things to do, not mangy old freaks with nothing better to do with their time.
Instant noodles from Sigilian convenience stores are also "for busy people with things to do."

>What makes you think you can create an egg that hatches into life?

I created a whole crystal sphere, complete with life, and I was hardly trying! I've got proof, too! It's in the hold of my ship right now. Creating a single egg would be simple. I'm a demiurge, after all.

>Instant noodles from Sigilian convenience stores are also "for busy people with things to do."

That's disgusting! That's for untalented berks with no money. How dare you insinuate that my cooking is anything like that cheap, flavorless crap! I can prepare something tasty and nutritious in the time it takes to walk to a convenience store and buy noodles. What are you, president of the Shemeshka fan club?

Not the Advanced Line at all, actually.

Rules Compendium.
It's probably in the Master Set, too.

>Planescape thread
>weeb fags posting their weebfag art
Go back to your containment board! It's time to DiTerlizzi this bitch up!

...

...

...

...

you're doing god's work, user.

...

Appreciate the sentiment, even if I am an Athar

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

And that's it for now

there are slums because the xaoisects and the presence of barmies from the gatehouse makes the hive unruly in the literal sense.

>tfw want to do a game focusing on how a world comes to terms with a cataclysm and rebuilds afterwards
>tfw also want to do high powered adventures on different planes of reality

>both in the same campaign would detract from either

Anyone else know this feel?

Oh got a scenario perfect for that - just have prime material planes occasionally drop into the negative energy plane, and all the various factions take an interest in evacuating/revelling/note taking in the chaos of a world literally coming to an end.

PC party could be planars roped into the evacuation and resettlement efforts or primes whose world is being destroyed.

...

One could interpret the Xaositects as a force of construction just as much as dismantlement when one considers that their favorite plane, Limbo, is a furnace of creation and destruction alike.

The Bleak Cabal, from my reading of their chapter in the Factol's Manifesto, would be one of the factions with a vested interest in gentrifying the Hive. They try to improve the lot of the Cage's poor with soup kitchens and other philanthropic services, so I fail to see why they would not use their resources to try to fix up the Hive.

The Planes of Law boxed set shows us that the slide of the layer of Nemausus from Arcadia to Mechanus was a cataclysmic event with huge consequences, stretching from faction politics (the Harmonium was the one responsible for the transition), to outsider species' relations (many a formian and Arcadian petitioner lost territory that day while the modrons gained much ground), to matters of cosmic balance (the slide is a loss for good and a victory for evil).

You could run a campaign wherein one of the Upper Planes' layers falls into, say, the Outlands. You might explore how the inhabitants deal with the fact that they were apparently "unworthy" enough to be cast out of the heavens, and try to rebuild in the Plane of Concordant Opposition and redeem themselves that they may reunite with the Upper Planes.
Of course, many a fiend would have a vested interest in capitalizing on this victory for evil, by trying to sabotage the fallen layer's struggle for redemption.
A good candidate for such a scenario would be Elysium's bottom layer of Thalasia, the fall of which would be especially catastrophic due to it containing the headwaters of the River Oceanus. Such a rerouting of this Upper Planar pathway would cause a great upheaval in the cosmic balance.

...

Don't forget about gate-towns - they're a lot easier to push into sliding onto another Plane, and there's even a published adventure about it.

Torment did it too.

This is also a fair idea, but I would have the Prime world fall into the *Positive* Energy Plane instead. It would make for a surreal apocalypse when the inhabitants of the world explode en masse from being overloaded with life force, and when "animating zones" (see page 83 of the 3.0 Manual of the Planes) appear and uncontrollably animate objects and plants. The influence of the Positive would make the post-apocalyptic world a place of verdurous life and nature rather than a decrepit husk.

The Positive Energy Plane is also home to many soul fonts (see the 3.0 Bastion of Broken Souls adventure and pages 207-209 of 3.5 Magic of Incarnum), which spawn the souls of the multiverse and send them flying off to newborns. The Prime world could have appeared within the boundaries of a soul font, causing a major cataclysm in the creation and dissemination of newborn souls; this would prompt many factions and exemplars to investigate, and yet none of the gods could directly act upon this, for soul fonts are barred from any form of deific intervention as per the Ban of the Unborn.

A gate-town is not quite a "world," and only really the Lower Planar gate-towns would consider a slide into their associated plane to be a catastrophe. The Upper Planar gate-towns would find it a cause for celebration, and I imagine Automata and Xaos would be ambivalent.

>They try to improve the lot of the Cage's poor with soup kitchens and other philanthropic services, so I fail to see why they would not use their resources to try to fix up the Hive.

The Bleak Cabal suffer probably the most from sudden fluctuations in membership and in capability to handle their philantropic goals and projects, so there are times when they simply have to kick out a load of their barmies before giving them any treatment, as well as there are barmies who simply aren't entirely treatable who they can't justify keeping locked away either.

So the hive around the gatehouse has a lot more barmies around it than elsewhere, which acts as a major boundary layer between sigil as a whole and the hive (I tend to tell my players they're near the gathouse by having them come across an area dubbed "the hall of shouters" - basically an open area where a bunch of streets come together and make a nice city square area that's filled with street preachers, doomsayers and fortune tellers). These barmies in turn make any attempt by the harmonium to clean the area up futile to the point of the harmonium losing officers to the bleakers as the futility of the scheme wears at them.

Coincidentally or on purpose, this creates a great smoke screen for chaotic types who need to evade harmonium or mercy killer patrols or hunts - which in turn means that the criminal organisations in the rest of sigil make sure the hive is kept in its present state and not cleaned up.

(of course this all boils down to "it just works")

>A gate-town is not quite a "world," and only really the Lower Planar gate-towns would consider a slide into their associated plane to be a catastrophe.

Demi-Planes suddenly crash landing into the prime or lower planes is probably more on the right scale.

Page 30 of the Factol's Manifesto notes that:
>Five hundred years ago, the Bleakers took over the asylum, renaming it the Gatehouse (berks in the Hive swear that’s because the building sits at the edge of the Lady of Pain’s Mazes). Since they arrived, the territory surrounding the building’s deteriorated even further, despite the positive influence the faction’s had on the ward.

In other words, while the Bleak Cabal has had a positive influence on the Hive overall, the area has deteriorated over the course of five hundred years.

However, if we go back to page 28 of the Factol's Manifesto, we can see evidence that this is about to change for the better. For the past few decades, the Bleak Cabal has been in a "golden age" of sorts:
>Although modern-day Bleakers still contract the Grim Retreat now and again (mostly because of the pressures and tensions of living in the teeming City of Doors), the faction’s learned a thing or two about mental health over centuries. The success rate of patients’ recovery is now quite high. The faction also tends to keep the number of Bleakers stable, currently maintaining a registered membership of some 10,000 beings in Sigil, though a considerably large population inhabits Pandemonium (the Madmen’s primary plane of influence). Lhar’s been factol for approximately three years now, and he’s determined to maintain the policies established by previous factols — mostly because they seem to work. It’s been over 30 years since a mass Grim Retreat, and the number of Madmen seeking voluntary commitment in the Mad Bleaker wing of the Gatehouse has dropped dramatically.

>Part of this good fortune stems from the Bleak Cabal taking a greater interest in Sigil. Oddly, of all the factions in the Cage, the Bleakers are arguably the most charitable. Why do they like to help others? Some no doubt find relief in caring for sods worse off than they are; a few Bleakers even suffer from messiah complexes and want to save the world from madness and death. But most just figure that by doing good works, they’ll move closer to finding the true meaning that lies within. And besides, expanding the faction’s presence and influence in Sigil is never a bad thing.

>More than a century ago they opened up an almshouse in their faction headquarters, helping to care for the poor and lost. It still operates today, along with small soup kitchens throughout the city. These places of safe haven are open to a body in need of a warm meal, regardless of race or creed. And if the sod happens to be a Bleaker, he and his cutters can get a cot in a back room for a night.

I would like to think that given such a zenith of the Bleak Cabal's overall competence and positive influence, they stand a solid chance of gentrifying the Hive.

As for your proposed idea of "demiplanes crashing into the Prime or the Lower Planes," that seems deeply unlikely given how grounded most such miniature planes are in the Deep Ethereal or the Astral Plane. It would take a tremendous force to push them over to another plane altogether, much more so than a transition of an Outer Planar layer, an event that is already "programmed" to be possible via the shifting of the cosmic forces of good, evil, law, and chaos.

what is the population of sigil? I've heard it is less than 100k, but that seems so small given that it is a "major" city in a setting with multiple planes that have hundreds of billions of inhabitants.

Are there mindflayers and aboleths in sigil?

Sigil's population varies a lot, but I'm not sure what the exact or even approximate number is.

As for aboleths and mind-flayers, yes there are. But they don't really cause much trouble, because while they could probably overpower the guards...acting up too hard in public draws Her attention, which is infinitely worse.

Page 13 of AD&D 2e's In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil says:
>Though the city has a population of more than a million, two-thirds of that are transient planars and primes.

This is consistent with how pages 74-75 of the original Planescape Campaign Setting boxed set's Sigil and Beyond strongly insists that Sigil is "medieval" in terms of technology and society, despite that being contradicted by later books in the product line.

A population of over a million (even if two-thirds of them are transients) would be mind-boggling by medieval standards, and would vastly exceed the canonical populations of the gate-towns in the 2e Player's Primer to the Outlands. Even the largest of the gate-towns, Bedlam, has a population of only 50,000; and a smaller city like Ecstasy boasts merely 25,000.

For reasons unfathomable, these values were lowered in 3.5, though this could be explained by a mass emigration away from Sigil after the Faction War. According to page 142 of the Planar Handbook, Sigil's population is a mere 250,000 (it is not stated whether or not this includes transients); compared to the City of Brass's 500,000 free residents and 1,000,000 slaves. In page 51 of Dragon Magazine #351, the population of the gate-town of Ecstasy was reduced to just 2,500.

D&D 4e's version of Sigil also had a population of only 250,000 in page 25 of the 4e Manual of the Planes, though again, this does not clarify whether or not the value includes transients.

To put it simply, Sigil's population depends on the edition you are using, though if you need an explanation for 2e's Sigilian population values being the largest, chalk it up to the 2e product line being mostly pre-Faction War.

>mindflayers and aboleths in sigil?
Planes of Chaos's poster of the Abyss mentions an illithid Guvner named "Illionth," who must have gone to Sigil's City Court sooner or later. That sets a canonical precedent for at least one mind flayer in the Cage. An aboleth would not be unthinkable either.

There's not really anything stopping illithids from going to Sigil, but there's not really all that much there for them. The standard mind flayer approach of "mind blast and feed" is an incredibly dumb idea on the streets of Sigil - there are too many powerful outsiders, adventurers and other creatures, not to mention the cranium rats, which can easily overpower the illithids in large numbers.

Aboleths would have a bit of trouble what with the whole aquatic thing, but they could do it. They'd probably be more likely to send servants, but there's nothing stopping them from showing up themselves and there would definitely be establishments and stores dedicated to things like them.

What of carving out traditional illithid and aboleth societies in the sprawling depths of Undersigil, and then traveling to the surface as needed to access portals all over the multiverse?

Probably not much point. There's no real need for that, because there's nothing worth keeping that large a number of flayers/aboleths in one location for. Aboleth society isn't friendly at the best of times, and an elder brain would be hunted down and killed almost immediately by the people of Sigil.

Planescape really does have the best art.

Good maps at least.

it would probably take a lot of people to kill an elder brain. I think i remember in 3e they even had a higher CR than a pit fiend.

Well they produce an ambient psionic attack effect for all of their domain, plus they're surprisingly hard to find.

Here is an interesting, Planescape-relevant fact regarding elder brains from their 2e incarnation:

lomion.de/cmm/eldebrai.php
>If death is imminent, an elder brain relinquishes its hold on the Prime Material Plane and withdraws completely into the Astral Plane, where the bulk of its mass resides. Once it transports itself in this way, an elder brain loses its anchor to the prime and becomes trapped on the Astral Plane – a rogue creature without ties to its community. It is uncertain what becomes of a rogue elder brain; however, illithid communities that lose their elder brain swiftly fall apart.

Planewalkers in the Astral Plane could very well encounter the bulk of an elder brain's mass there, or perhaps a rogue elder brain who had been defeated in the Prime and now wanders aimlessly in the Astral. Perhaps such a brain could find their way into a color pool and wind up in one of the Outer Planes, or even a portal to Sigil.

Remember that Cranium Rats are, outside of Sigil, all controlled by the big elder brain god thingie, and the cranium rats of sigil probably wouldn't take too kindly to an elder brain in sigil - at the same time the elder brain would likely be able to subvert part of the cranium rat population, leading to a fairly blood cranium rat civil war under Sigil's streets.

I fail to see why Ilsensine, the greater god and patron deity of the illithid, would disapprove of the presence of an elder brain within Sigil, when elder brains are the epitome of illithidkind. It is not as though an elder brain poses any meaningful competition to Ilsensine.

I never got Ilsensine. I feel like she really goes against the illithid fluff. Were the illithids subservient to her when they had their multiversal world spanning empire? Making them all serve a giant brain god just feels so ... standard

>Prince Levistus's Iceberg

Oh god that asshole. We might have pissed him off somewhat in our game after we encountered him in the abyss, alive and very much un-frozen. We've got some form of reprieve for now, but there's no way things can be that easy to get him off our backs.

I have a "Free" Port town (Free meaning Pirate driven) with heavy connections into the Abyss. Looking to make this town free more planescapish in an effort to launch my PCs into the plane.

Any suggestions?

>Have more PS art. Too much unrelated anime stuff.

Ilsensine is secondary to the elder brains.
Mindflayers only pay her lip service unless they expect to be rejected by their elder brain after death.
Mindflayers who do expect that though, tey're crazy desperate to get let into Ilensine's afterlife.

DO Illithid petitioners look like ilithids? or do they come back as neothilids and need to be stuck in a new head?

Well you can never go wrong with Plague-Mort.

A somewhat "standard" method of connecting the town to the Abyss would be to insert into the town a portal to either Plague-Mort or the Abyss directly, but here is a better way to emphasize its "pirate port" nature.

Due to an unfortunate coincidence of topography and geography favorable for the Abyss, a historical act of great chaos and evil, the deliberate sorceries of a demon lord, or some other abstruse reason, the coast around the town effectively acts as a portal to the Abyss. By fulfilling certain conditions, a ship can qualify as "possessing the right gate-key" and sail straight into the Abyss, whether heading towards or away from the coast. A rare few ships unintentionally "possess the gate-key" and wind up in the Abyss, hapless crew and all.

The transition to the Abyss is a very subtle one, only truly noticeable once it is too late. Mortal blue seas near-imperceptibly slide into waters black and prowled by myrmixicus tanar'ri, reaved by tanar'ri corsairs, and battered by naval engagements of the Blood War.

If you wish to focus the campaign exclusively on the Abyss (at least initially), the mortal coast should connect to the Abyssian Ocean, which connects many famous Abyssal realms, from Demogorgon's to Dagon's to Malcanthet's to Yeenoghu's; you can read about this in page 109 of the Fiendish Codex I.
Alternatively, if you simply wish to let the players romp about in the Abyss before moving into other planes, the mortal coast should link up with the River Styx in the Abyss's first layer of Pazunia, perhaps into the relatively safe, succubus-governed town of Broken Reach; you can learn more of the River Styx in page 111 of the Fiendish Codex I, and Broken Reach in page 116 of the same book and pages 55-62 of Dungeon Magazine #148.

hi I'm retarded and only know PS from the game and want to know what I need to know in order to open portals to other worlds in my game

Like, what's the rundown? The quick and dirty? The "So you want to shove some Planescape into your setting: For Idiots"?

>tipping fedoras before it was ruined

Lazz was a great, even if he (she?) get's overshadowed by DiTerlizzi

If you would like to learn about the 2e Planescape setting through just a single book, I would recommend avoiding the original boxed set. It is not particularly vital to playing or running Planescape. If anything, it is rather unpolished and unrefined.

The single most important book for Planescape 2e is the "Planewalker's Handbook." It is the most up-to-date summary of the entire setting, useful for both players and GMs, and everyone who intends on using the setting should read through it as much as possible.

If you are interested in reading more after that, you will want "In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil," "Factol's Manifesto," and "Uncaged: Faces of Sigil" for running the City of Doors.
"Planes of Law," "Planes of Chaos," "Planes of Conflict," and "A Player's Primer to the Outlands" will acquaint you with the Outer Planes.
"Inner Planes," "Guide to the Astral Plane," and "Guide to the Ethereal Plane" should cover the remaining planes.

Those are the primary books you will want. If you wish to understand fiends and the Blood War, you should also download "Faces of Evil: The Fiends" and "Hellbound: The Blood War." Likewise, if gods and other divinities interest you, "On Hallowed Ground" should serve you well.

For portals and other planar gateways, you will want to consult pages 34-43 of the "Planewalker's Handbook." There are myriad gateways connecting the Prime Material Plane to the wider multiverse: portals leading to Sigil, portals heading to other planes, vortices to the Inner Planes, astral conduits to the Outer Planes, color pools into the Astral Plane, the World Ash Yggdrasil, Mount Olympus, the Infinite Staircase (detailed not in the "Planewalker's Handbook," but in "Tales from the Infinite Staircase") and more.

There are so many ways to physically walk from the Prime to the planes that you could write into your Prime setting whatever sort of planar gateway suits your fancy, and it would fit at least one of the types of gateways mentioned above.

For the most part, planar gateways are naturally occurring. Planescap seldom explains why any given gateway exists. Planar inhabitants accept them as a fact of life.

Why is there a two-way elemental vortex connecting the City of Brass in the Elemental Plane of Fire to a certain Prime volcano? There simply is.
Why does climbing up a specific sacred sequoia in the Prime let a mortal enter the boughs of the World Ash Yggdrasil, and from there a handful of other planes? Who cares?
Why does walking through the door of a special tavern in a mundane human town with a piece of foie gras in one hand and a thornless rose in the other activate a portal leading to the Harmonium's Barracks in the Lady's Ward of Sigil? Nobody knows.

There is one exception to this: astral conduits, detailed in pages 24-29 of the "Guide to the Astral Plane" and pages 40-41 of the "Planewalker's Handbook." Planar inhabitants generally agree on what these naturally-occurring tubes that link the Prime to the Outer Planes exist for:
1. Transporting the souls of deceased mortals from the Prime to their appropriate afterlives in the Outer Planes. (Those who die outside of the Prime must make the trip manually in soul-form, as explained in page 29 of "On Hallowed Ground." How this works for divine realms outside of the Outer Planes is an enigma.)
2. Sending divine energy from gods in the Outer Planes to their worshipers and priests in the Prime Material Plane. (How said energy gets sent to worshipers and priests elsewhere is a mystery.)
3. Theoretically, absorbing prayers from the Prime Material Plane and forwarding them off to the appropriate deity in the Outer Planes.

Conduits are invisible short of magical senses, but they are quite easy to operate: just step into one end of the tube and get send hurtling into the other end. The trip is so swift that the passenger will hardly notice that they are traveling alongside streams of mortal souls, divine energy, and possibly prayers.

"Robert Lazzaretti"