City of Doors

[Thayborne]

Player Characters do not need the City of Doors to go to the Outer Planes. Why do the gods try to enter Sigil? Do they not have much more power and abilities than a Player?

[OldTrees1]

If the Lady of Pain forbids you from entering Sigil, you might feel tempted to go to Sigil, but it would be either impossible or mean your doom.

For some reason the Lady of Pain only prohibits Gods from entering Sigil. The Players are not able to overcome the Lady's decree, they merely have not been banned by it.

The events of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Vecna_Die! explain why mortals might appreciate the Lady preventing Gods from entering Sigil.

[GeoffWatson]

According to Planescape fans, Sigil is the most important place in the entire multiverse, and the Sigilian factions are the most important people in the entire multiverse.

If you were a god, wouldn't you want to go to the most important place, and meet the most important people?

[NichG]

Presumably being in control of Sigil gives you free permanent at-will Gates that breach normal protections, or at least that's what it must seem like. So if you want to send an army of millions to invade the deep Abyss or something, it's not exactly worthless. Also a more subtle matter is that Sigil seems to be a breeding ground for alternate non-alignment-dominated philosophies that seem to be able to empower themselves on the basis of their belief, so that might suggest some degree of autonomy and control over the relationship between belief, nature, and power that could be attractive either for gods who want to slip the bonds of mortal belief, or who want to mess with each-other.

[Thayborne]

According to Planescape fans, Sigil is the most important place in the entire multiverse, and the Sigilian factions are the most important people in the entire multiverse.

If you were a god, wouldn't you want to go to the most important place, and meet the most important people?

Why would Sigil be more important than the Seven Heavens, Mount Olympus or some other Plane? Since when do the gods want to meet people?

[Eldan]

Because it allows you to go anywhere. Gods can bar you from teleporting, planeshifting or gating to their domains. And most magical means of planar travel can't take you to any planar layer other than the first (at least in Planescape). Sigil ignores all that. If you find the right door, you can walk right into Boccob's throne room, and he can do nothing to stop you. (Other than incinerate you right after.)

[Tvtyrant]

Why would Sigil be more important than the Seven Heavens, Mount Olympus or some other Plane? Since when do the gods want to meet people?

It's not, but the people who live there think it is. People outside there barely care the people inside think it is the center of the universe, as with most metropolises. It has no effect on the PMP, and little on the Inner or Outer Planes.

Think of the Lady of Pain as being equivalent to Asmodeous; extremely powerful, stronger than most Gods, but also limited in the ways they can use their powers. She makes Mazes, he determines the hierarchy of Hell.

[Thayborne]

Because it allows you to go anywhere. Gods can bar you from teleporting, planeshifting or gating to their domains. And most magical means of planar travel can't take you to any planar layer other than the first (at least in Planescape). Sigil ignores all that. If you find the right door, you can walk right into Boccob's throne room, and he can do nothing to stop you. (Other than incinerate you right after.)

I have never heard of a god barring travel to their plane. I guess you would not want to port into the presence a god. That might incur that god's wrath. Are not the Planes as large as a universe or at least as large as a campaign setting continent?

[OldTrees1]

Why would Sigil be more important than the Seven Heavens, Mount Olympus or some other Plane? Since when do the gods want to meet people?

Why do you keep focusing on the people? Vecna did not care that people were there, Sigil's location and power was his goal.
1) Logistics and range are power. Consider the Oots comic and what Redcloak wants to do with the Snarl. Redcloak wants to be able to threaten anyone at anytime. They imagine they will have greater reach than the gods. If true then the gods would have to submit to Redcloak's demands.
2) Typically the center is a focus of power and a point of vulnerability. If you wanted to remake reality, go to the center of reality.


So there is a location at the center of reality. At that location you have the power and the access to reconfigure reality. That location also has the ability to block travel and to have unblockable travel. Sigil just so happens to be the name of a city that occupies that location.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I have never heard of a god barring travel to their plane. I guess you would not want to port into the presence a god. That might incur that god's wrath. Are not the Planes as large as a universe or at least as large as a campaign setting continent?

The Planes are infinite, and each plane is infinite. Gods don't have planes, per se; they have divine realms located on those planes. Deities have lots and lots of control over what happens in those divine realms.

The Lady isn't a god or even an NPC, really. She's a narrative construction that ensures that Sigil remains a place a level 1 PC can start an adventure rather than an epic-level warzone. One of the things that ensures that is a hard ban on deities and other Powers, and a soft ban on unique agents. PCs and most NPCs don't rise to that level, even most epic ones. A pit fiend, though, is going to be 'encouraged' to get out with some degree of swiftness. The one time the ban on Powers was circumvented, Sigil was nearly destroyed merely by the presence of the deity and the force of the Lady's displeasure.

[Kaptin Keen]

As far as I know, everything about the Lady of Pain and the City of Doors is speculation. Planescape is full of hints about what it was the Lady did that made all the gods eager to kill her - why they can't enter Sigil, and why she can't leave.

It's just fluff. It's a mystery, and like all mysteries, it's only interesting so long as it remains unsolved.

[Yora]

Sigil is mysterious and incomprehensible. The outer planes as a whole look like they could be a natural phenomenon. Hundreds of universes that are naturally arranging themselves based on alignment as interdimensional connections are concerned.
But Sigil very clearly was made artifically by someone. It was build. The Spire might be a natural feature of the Outlands, but the half open ring floating above its tip is not. Whether the city was added later or was always part of the construction is unknown. It's certainly made to house humanoid mortals, but that could have been a choice made by the Lady of Pain or one of her potential predecessors. Since she constantly remakes the place, it's impossible to determine its original layout.

Why was Sigil made? We don't know.
Who made Sigil? We don't know.
For how long was it like this? Is it still serving its original purpose?
The only one who could know is the Lady of Pain. She is there to imply that there are answers, but also made so she will never reveal anything.

That works great. Until you have a god actually make it inside, and then you yave all kind of questions that ask for an answer. (Metaplot is always bad.)

[Thayborne]

The book the Pages of Pain states that the Lady of Pain was married to Set. During the wedding reception her heart was stolen. There is the Lethe River and something about her having memory loss. The book also mentions that the Lady of Pain refuses worship and to pray to her invite her wrath. This may be creative license by the author.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

The book the Pages of Pain states that the Lady of Pain was married to Set. During the wedding reception her heart was stolen. There is the Lethe River and something about her having memory loss. The book also mentions that the Lady of Pain refuses worship and to pray to her invite her wrath. This may be creative license by the author.

It is. Pages of Pain is best ignored.

[Thayborne]

It is. Pages of Pain is best ignored.

Have you read the book?

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Have you read the book?

Admittedly I haven't. Troy Denning is really not my particular cup of tea, and the Lady of Pain isn't a regular demihuman with humanesque problems and concerns.

[Lagtime]

Why would Sigil be more important than the Seven Heavens, Mount Olympus or some other Plane? Since when do the gods want to meet people?

I would note: One of the Rules of Three, is : No place in the Multiverse is more important than any of other places in the Multiverse.

I have never heard of a god barring travel to their plane. I guess you would not want to port into the presence a god. That might incur that god's wrath. Are not the Planes as large as a universe or at least as large as a campaign setting continent?

Well, gods don't control whole planes.....but they sure do limit travel to their divine realms.

Most planes are infinite.

[Thayborne]

Admittedly I haven't. Troy Denning is really not my particular cup of tea, and the Lady of Pain isn't a regular demihuman with humanesque problems and concerns.

Perhaps you have heard about Zeus' very human like behavior?

[JNAProductions]

Perhaps you have heard about Zeus' very human like behavior?

Don't see why that's in any way relevant.

Some deities can act very human. Others don't have to.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Perhaps you have heard about Zeus' very human like behavior?

As a classics major, yes, I've heard quite a lot about it, and the Lady isn't Zeus. She isn't the personification of a concept or an anthropomorphized thing that lodges somewhere deep within the moral psyche. She's something else. What that actually is is best left unidentified.