Lady of Pain - homebrew origin/purpose? Heresy?!

[Aaedimus]

So I've been building a campaign, and I think the Lady of Pain is a really cool concept, but if I write her in I had some ideas as to her origin and purpose which give the players more than is offered in lore, but keeps her mysterious...

Basically the true purpose of Sigil would be to weather reality ending scenarios and solve possible paradoxes with existence. She is the keeper of Sigil, and thus, every rule she has... everything she does, even the ones that don't make sense, are in the service of that goal: providing a continuation of reality in the face of certain situations.

One of them require an arc, as every plane of existence and all of the gods are wiped from reality. The structure and structure rule of Sigil allows the Lady to close it off from this catastrophe... she in this sense, and with full knowledge of her duties is absolute. She has no exceptions for the rules (such as not worshiping her) which might endanger the purpose of Sigil.

I was thinking that because of this... it would make sense for her to be a litteral (the first) daughter of Ao... his purpose for creating her to ensure the continuation of existence.

Is any of this heretical or goes against any specific planescape cannon?

[Aaedimus]

The players would end up helping cultivate the re-birth of Chronepsis (who many say is the other side of the coin or twin of Ao), who they had been working for and lives a cyclical life... sigil ensuring a continuation of time rather than a closed loop even though Chronepsis (and thus Ao) lives in a closed loop.

[Millstone85]

So I googled Chronepsis and found him to be the brother of Io, not of Ao.

Which is cool, because I would not like to think of Ao as the father of Her Serenity. It is bad enough to see Selûne and Shar answer to that clown.

But Io, the god of all dragons, who is said to have become divided into Bahamut and Tiamat, and may himself have been a division of the World Serpent along with Jazirian and other primordial deities, that's neat.

Oh! Oh! What if Sigil was actually a slumbering snake biting its own tail, with the Lady of Pain as its humanoid avatar, much like Ahriman with Asmodeus?

[dreast]

Clearly, the Lady of Pain is three squirrels with a headdress and a ring of levitation. I thought everyone knew that.

[OldTrees1]

Clearly, the Lady of Pain is three squirrels with a headdress and a ring of levitation. I thought everyone knew that.

What happened to the other 3? The NPC's crazy theory used to be six squirrels.

[dreast]

What happened to the other 3? It used to be six squirrels.

Well, it’s been thirty years. Squirrels don’t live that long. And memories of jokes get hazy too.

[Millstone85]

Clearly, the Lady of Pain is three squirrels with a headdress and a ring of levitation. I thought everyone knew that.

That joke had its time. Now everyone is three kobolds in a trenchcoat.

[Tanarii]

The Lady of Pain is intentionally a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Why you'd feel the need to answer the question of her origin and purpose is beyond me, but apparently it's intentionally that way exactly so you can do that as an individual DM. So go to town.

[Mr Adventurer]

Making her related in any way to Ao significantly diminishes her, since Ao is unique to the Faerunian Crystal Sphere.

[Doug Lampert]

Clearly, the Lady of Pain is three squirrels with a headdress and a ring of levitation. I thought everyone knew that.

Does this make Squirrel Girl the ultimate power behind the throne in Sigil?

[KorvinStarmast]

I can see the purpose of Sigil as being necessary for the perpetuation of existence, which is at risk due to the following threat:

Tharizdun.

This being was originally the god of Eternal Darkness, Decay, Entropy, Malign Knowledge, Insanity, and Cold. He was imprisoned ages ago by a coalition of deities to prevent the destruction of existence itself.

Sigil is the back up plan; if he gets out of his prison, Sigil is the last refuge for any deity that can make it there and start again ... or something like that.

The above is a bit of Greyhawkian lore that might fit your concept.

[JackPhoenix]

It is certainly heretical to assume Ao is superior to her. Ao's will may be absolute in his setting, but as far as Planescape is concerned, he's just a local Power with no influence outside FR (and thanks Gygax for that).

[Naanomi]

AO is an Overpower, one of many... though one of the more active ones to be sure. They are almost absolute on their home Prime domain, but have essentially no influence out of it... even less than Gods of the Outer-Planes that have aspects on multiple Prime worlds, Over-Deities like AO are not exactly ‘above’ Gods in an absolute sense; more that they serve a different role than Gods (including creating a lot, but not all, of them)

He even had a boss (the Luminous Being) who may be one of the ‘Eldest Ones’ that create universes (and created the Great Wheel); or may be some sort of intermediary... though it is implied that Over-Powers like AO serve the Eldest Ones in some ‘keep the game going’ sort of capacity

I can see the purpose of Sigil as being necessary for the perpetuation of existence, which is at risk due to the following threat:

Tharizdun.

This being was originally the god of Eternal Darkness, Decay, Entropy, Malign Knowledge, Insanity, and Cold. He was imprisoned ages ago by a coalition of deities to prevent the destruction of existence itself.

Sigil is the back up plan; if he gets out of his prison, Sigil is the last refuge for any deity that can make it there and start again ... or something like that.

The above is a bit of Greyhawkian lore that might fit your concept.

4E made Tharizdun the 'ultimate badguy behind absolutely everything wrong' in DnD; but earlier lore made it clear he was a super-powerful God that an entire world's worth of Pantheon had to work together to seal away... but he wasn't a threat to all creation by any stretch. He is arguably the strongest known God, but still 'just' a God

[Trafalgar]

Sigil is the back up plan; if he gets out of his prison, Sigil is the last refuge for any deity that can make it there and start again ... or something like that.

I thought the Lady of Pain didn't allow any deities into Sigil.

[Naanomi]

I thought the Lady of Pain didn't allow any deities into Sigil.

Not anymore. Gods used to be allowed until Aoskar personally angered her and every God paid the price of her displeasure. Beings with enough power to threaten the City of Sigil (Demon Lords, powerful Chronomancers, beings of significant power from the Far Realm, etc) are not eviscerated instantly; but are not exactly welcome either and tend to get booted/mazed/annihilated quickly enough that none bother to go there to begin with. Fiends learned that quickly during the War of Law and Chaos when they tried to use the place to move armies around and... lost the armies

Last time a God (Vecna) broke her rules and made it there (sort of) it... really screwed up things on a cosmological scale, enough to force an edition change

[ff7hero]

AO is an Overpower, one of many... though one of the more active ones to be sure. They are almost absolute on their home Prime domain, but have essentially no influence out of it... even less than Gods of the Outer-Planes that have aspects on multiple Prime worlds, Over-Deities like AO are not exactly ‘above’ Gods in an absolute sense; more that they serve a different role than Gods (including creating a lot, but not all, of them)

He even had a boss (the Luminous Being) who may be one of the ‘Eldest Ones’ that create universes (and created the Great Wheel); or may be some sort of intermediary... though it is implied that Over-Powers like AO serve the Eldest Ones in some ‘keep the game going’ sort of capacity

I believe Ao is the only "confirmed" Overpower in Planescape. Krynn/Dragonlance has a handful of references to an Overgod who is likely also an Overpower. Crystal Spheres being what they are, I find it likely that not all spheres have an Overpower. Eberron and Athas for example seem like unlikely places to find an Overpower.

The Luminous Being, if I recall correctly, only appeared once, in the epilogue of a novel involving Ao. I'm pretty sure it was implied he was an (older) Overpower of a different sphere who acted as a "mentor" to Ao.

[Naanomi]

The Luminous Being, if I recall correctly, only appeared once, in the epilogue of a novel involving Ao. I'm pretty sure it was implied he was an (older) Overpower of a different sphere who acted as a "mentor" to Ao.

Luminous Being is also mentioned in his entry in the 2e Deities and Demigods books as well.

AO is pretty clearly equivalent to the Hierarchs of the Immortals Boxed Set, and some inferences can be made from there about who he serves and what his role is

[Mr Adventurer]

I can see the purpose of Sigil as being necessary for the perpetuation of existence, which is at risk due to the following threat:

Tharizdun.

This being was originally the god of Eternal Darkness, Decay, Entropy, Malign Knowledge, Insanity, and Cold. He was imprisoned ages ago by a coalition of deities to prevent the destruction of existence itself.

Sigil is the back up plan; if he gets out of his prison, Sigil is the last refuge for any deity that can make it there and start again ... or something like that.

The above is a bit of Greyhawkian lore that might fit your concept.

Making Sigil the creation of gods also significantly diminishes it.

Edit: I also don't know that the parts of your post about Sigil - as opposed to the parts about Tharizdun - are indeed part of Greyhawk.

[Naanomi]

Making Sigil the creation of gods also significantly diminishes it.

Very true, we have record of Sigil first being ‘discovered’ about midway through the War of Law and Chaos... probably before the Gods as we know them existed

Of course, there are older and greater powers than the Gods out there

[Spriteless]

I like Aaedimus' theoryheadcannon. I add to it. The outlands is like a tiny map of the outer planes. What if it is seeding the planes? If everything is destroyed, a new version will be built, as souls fall the the portal towns, which overload and then fall to create new planes. Thus, the cosmology can be healed by one half of the plane, even as the people in Sigil stay around to witness time's arrow and keep it from bending over itself.

[jojosskul]

Do you want to get mazed berk? Cause talking about the Lady of Pain is how you get mazed.

[KorvinStarmast]

He even had a boss (the Luminous Being) who may be one of the ‘Eldest Ones’ that create universes (and created the Great Wheel); or may be some sort of intermediary... though it is implied that Over-Powers like AO serve the Eldest Ones in some ‘keep the game going’ sort of capacit

Yeah, since there is no and has never been a unified D&D cosmology - the game was invented with the DM as the world/universe builder - any attempt at unifying one like the world of Sanctuary for the Diablo series of CRPGs is an exercies in futility and retcon. Heck, even WoTC got into the act, as you noted:

4E made Tharizdun the 'ultimate badguy behind absolutely everything wrong' in DnD; but earlier lore made it clear he was a super-powerful God that an entire world's worth of Pantheon had to work together to seal away... but he wasn't a threat to all creation by any stretch. He is arguably the strongest known God, but still 'just' a God

I'll disagree with you on the italicized part. Originally, yes he was. I am not sure about the rest of you, but I do not consider FR as "D&D default world and D&D basic cosmology." (And also, 4e is to me a deep, dark, void. It was not an edition I ever experienced, as I was not D&Ding in those days. Part of my ten year haiatus). FR is Ed Greenwood's project and his world, later adapted and retconned - again and again - in order to sell products. Greyhawk has the problem of "before the War of Ashes" and "after War of Ashes" coming from different creators, though to their credit those folks who put their time and effort into Living Greyhawk get a tip of the cap from me.

Making Sigil the creation of gods also significantly diminishes it.

I disagree. It takes beings at least that powerful to create that haven in the first place, it seems to me. Sigil arising ex nihilo makes no sense - without having a purpose it won't exist. {OK, its original purpose was to make money by selling more supplements, you got me } No single being of the deity level of power could create it - so I agree with you at least in part - but their collective connections to all of their domains (see The Planes as far back as AD&D 1e PHB diagram) is what makes it a nexus for them all.

I'll use a gross RL analogy and point to the Lady as the Comissioner of the NFL and the deities as the various team owners, except that she wasn't hired by them, she is an embodiment of what they need, just as every deity is an embodiment of something. (Wind, love, fire, etc). And they thus can fall afoul of her displeasure. And she can tell them "you can, or can't come into my office" as she herself grows in power over the years. She's not static, right? And she's plenty smart.

I also don't know that the parts of your post about Sigil - as opposed to the parts about Tharizdun - are indeed part of Greyhawk.

Tharizdun existed in Greyhawk long before anyone at TSR ideated Sigil or Planescape. As a deity, Tharizdun came before the publication of AD&D 1e as far as I can tell, based on how Gygax basically copied one of Rob Kuntz' dark beings. Thus my suggestion on a Greyhawkian connection. As this thread is mostly speculation, I was offering an alternative for the OP to consider. Nowhere did I claim that this was some kind of canon in one of the nine or ten different D&D continuities that keep getting retconned.

[Unoriginal]

I remember a video with one of the 5e writers, implying that Sigil, or at least the "no gods here" part, was an example of (powerful) contract magic.

[KorvinStarmast]

I remember a video with one of the 5e writers, implying that Sigil, or at least the "no gods here" part, was an example of (powerful) contract magic.

They made a deal?

As another Iconic Lady once said: "Bust a deal, face the Wheel!"

[Naanomi]

<stuff>

All of my stuff is from the 'large metasetting' Planescape/Spelljammer perspective, where every DnD setting is definitively part of one great super-cosmology (even those that don't seem like it); probably best embodied in the 3.5 Manual of the Planes portions on 'traveling to alternative cosmologies' that discuss how even things outside of the Great Wheel, you are still sort of part of the same extended system. Greyhawk is part of the Radiant Triangle, a system of closely connected Crystal Spheres (along with Realmspace and Krynnspace); all part of the Greater Arcane Flow, all contained in the Prime Material Plane; one small (yet infinite) part of the Great Wheel; which itself is just one existence in a myriad of alternative and mostly seperate (yet existing in the same medium) cosmologies

In such a setting... Gods are relative newcomers to the scene and hardly the 'top dogs' cosmologically... a huge part of planar history happened before any Gods as we would recognize them appeared, and they *definitely* didn't have a direct hand on creating most of creation... Sigil becomes lessened by being a creation of the Gods because Sigil is *significantly more cosmologically important* than the Gods; and any God may be an enormous threat on the local scene, but the larger system probably won't noticed an annihilated crystal sphere or two; and Tharzidun isn't going to be upending the Great Wheel itself anytime soon; let alone any existence beyond that

[Unoriginal]

All of my stuff is from the 'large metasetting' Planescape/Spelljammer perspective, where every DnD setting is definitively part of one great super-cosmology (even those that don't seem like it); probably best embodied in the 3.5 Manual of the Planes portions on 'traveling to alternative cosmologies' that discuss how even things outside of the Great Wheel, you are still sort of part of the same extended system. Greyhawk is part of the Radiant Triangle, a system of closely connected Crystal Spheres (along with Realmspace and Krynnspace); all part of the Greater Arcane Flow, all contained in the Prime Material Plane; one small (yet infinite) part of the Great Wheel; which itself is just one existence in a myriad of alternative and mostly seperate (yet existing in the same medium) cosmologies

In such a setting... Gods are relative newcomers to the scene and hardly the 'top dogs' cosmologically... a huge part of planar history happened before any Gods as we would recognize them appeared, and they *definitely* didn't have a direct hand on creating most of creation... Sigil becomes lessened by being a creation of the Gods because Sigil is *significantly more cosmologically important* than the Gods; and any God may be an enormous threat on the local scene, but the larger system probably won't noticed an annihilated crystal sphere or two; and Tharzidun isn't going to be upending the Great Wheel itself anytime soon; let alone any existence beyond that

True. In 5e at least, several bits of lore indicate or at least imply that the gods got their current relative cosmological importance by battling the Primordial (elemental) Powers, winning, and becoming the world-makers (or at least the world-furniture-providers) in their stead.

Also at least 5e and 3.X make clear that the Aboleths were here long before the gods and would very much like those damn whippersnappers to get off their lawn.

I don't think that making Sigil younger than the Aboleths is a good idea, personally.


Interestingly, 5e Tharizdun is (to my knowledge) the only creature to be classified simultaneously as a Great Old One, an Elder Evil, and a deity. So if he *did* manage to destroy even the Material Plane only, he would lose a ton of power due to no longer having mortals granting him their worship.

[micahaphone]

So Sigil acts as a cosmic appendix, a refuge where some people and/or dieties could survive a full system wipe, then go back out afterwards to slowly repopulate? Maybe the lady o pain doesn't let dieties in unless it's a full blown multiverse wide catastrophe, no one's allowed to use the fallout bunker as a crash pad. She's the steward of the cosmic fortress, doesn't want to appear to be choosing favorites or something like that.

I think that's got some narrative meat to it, you could go places with it. If I were the DM I'd be concerned that this is just deep lore (tm) that the players will never end up learning or needing to know. But I'm a very bottom-up oriented DM, if you can do the top-down style of worldbuilding, power to you!

[KorvinStarmast]

All of my stuff is from the 'large metasetting' Planescape/Spelljammer perspective, where every DnD setting is definitively part of one great super-cosmology (even those that don't seem like it); probably best embodied in the 3.5 Manual of the Planes portions on 'traveling to alternative cosmologies' that discuss how even things outside of the Great Wheel, you are still sort of part of the same extended system. Greyhawk is part of the Radiant Triangle, a system of closely connected Crystal Spheres (along with Realmspace and Krynnspace); all part of the Greater Arcane Flow, all contained in the Prime Material Plane; one small (yet infinite) part of the Great Wheel; which itself is just one existence in a myriad of alternative and mostly seperate (yet existing in the same medium) cosmologies

Cool. I am not too enamored of 3.x edition, so we'll tend to see this a bit differently.

Sigil becomes lessened by being a creation of the Gods because Sigil

I don't feel this way because synergy is a thing. Something along the lines of:
That which we can create together is far greater than the sum of its parts, or the sum of its creator's individual powers. The Lady, being Of Sigil, is thus uniquely powerful within that domain. (I am now channeling a little bit of Roger Zelazny's Jack of Shadows and Amber cosmology, TBH).

In such a setting... Gods are relative newcomers to the scene and hardly the 'top dogs' cosmologically.

The problem is, there are gods and then there are 'gods' which puts us somewhat into the Tolkien~Eru with his subordinate 'gods' for Middle Earth framework - but per your points already, it's really not that simple. It also reaches us back to old Greek mythology for Chronus (who got his top dog status by killing his own sire) whom Zeus killed to become top dog in that mythical cosmology... and none of this touches on deep old / old ones / elder gods like the Lovecraftian things (which I suspect had a lot to do with Tharizdun as originally envisioned). D&D deities and cosmology is One Hot Mess.

Heck, you might even describe it as chaotic.

Interestingly, 5e Tharizdun is (to my knowledge) the only creature to be classified simultaneously as a Great Old One, an Elder Evil, and a deity. So if he *did* manage to destroy even the Material Plane only, he would lose a ton of power due to no longer having mortals granting him their worship.

The chance that Tharizdun cares about a minor loss of power is likely to bevery low. If one has the power to destroy the Material Plane, and either much of or all of existence, the fruits of such a destroyed speck in the Cosmos writ large is unlikely to matter much.

[Naanomi]

Cool. I am not too enamored of 3.x edition, so we'll tend to see this a bit differently.

3.5 isn't my favorite lore edition, that would be 2E Planescape; but the Manual of the Planes in 3.X is the only source that explicitly goes into alternative cosmologies (which we have known existed outside of the Great Wheel in earlier Lore, for example in the backstory of the Spellweavers; but not with much explanation)

The problem is, there are gods and then there are 'gods' which puts us somewhat into the Tolkien~Eru with his subordinate 'gods' for Middle Earth framework - but per your points already, it's really not that simple. It also reaches us back to old Greek mythology for Chronus (who got his top dog status by killing his own sire) whom Zeus killed to become top dog in that mythical cosmology... and none of this touches on deep old / old ones / elder gods like the Lovecraftian things (which I suspect had a lot to do with Tharizdun as originally envisioned). D&D deities and cosmology is One Hot Mess.

The 'Big Picture' Cosmology in DnD tends to be sort of... Vedic/Indian? That the true creators of the universe are so abstract, so beyond mortal understanding, with motivations so obscure as to be meaningless... that they just get ignored or handwaved, the more 'comprehensible' Gods that muck about in the current reality are much more understandable and, frankly, important to the lives of the average mortal compared to the 'माया/maya' style Eldest Ones who set the Great Wheel (and presumably other realities) in motion.

The current Gods as we know them appeared what... sometime in the latter parts of the War of Law and Chaos? Way way way after the servants of the Eldest Ones beat back the Draeden (who themselves lingered around after the destruction of *a previous* universe, probably also created by the Eldest Ones itself); after Pisaethces came from the Far Realm and inadvertently spawned the Aboleth and they dominated the Crystal Spheres of the Prime for ages and ages... probably after the rise of the True Ancestors and their efforts to spread life to many Spheres; probably after the rise and fall of the Reigar empire; perhaps after the Juna and their terraforming efforts stopped... The Inner Planes went through several stages of configuration and shift before any Gods existed; from primarily conceptual energy planes through various physical configurations before settling in some approximation of their current Earth/Fire/Air/Water system... nearly every exemplar race of the Outer Planes rose and were replaced; after the mass appearance of Mortal Souls in the Outer Planes (and many beforehand)...

The Gods came when mortal races could muster up enough 'worship power' to kindle them into being; or when Overpowers decided they should exist to deal with the Mortals on the Prime that they had plans for later. Heck, Sigil wasn't 'discovered' in any meaningful sense until significantly *after* the War of Law and Chaos ended... though it is known to have existed much longer than the Planar Community has known about it being a city, since it was clearly visible on top of the Spire for as long as their has been an Outer Planes (which isn't always, but a bloody long time).

For the curious, the reason no Gods are allowed in Sigil isn't some cosmic rule... there was a time that Gods were allowed in without much concern. It wasn't until a God of Travel, Aoskar, declared himself lord of Sigil, said the Lady of Pain was an Avatar of his, and (most importantly) one of the Lady of Pain's servant race (the Dabus) became a cleric of Aoskar that she ended him absolutely and locked the doors to divine presence (a few exceptions noted, a handful of demigods like Finder have been allowed in; and Harbinger House played by its own rules... just ask Vecna)

The chance that Tharizdun cares about a minor loss of power is likely to be very low. If one has the power to destroy the Material Plane, and either much of or all of existence, the fruits of such a destroyed speck in the Cosmos writ large is unlikely to matter much.

Outside of 4E Lore, I don't see any credible evidence that Tharizdun has ever been a threat to anything outside of Greyspace; let alone the entire infinite Material Plane and its crystal spheres (of which only *one* has ever been known to be destroyed, and it happened in an event preceding almost all known history; though more than a few have been scoured of life or even matter... the crystal sphere itself persisted though). Clueless berks often think existence ends at the border of their Crystal Sphere... it is one of the primary themes of the Planescape setting that this is erroneous provincial thinking and that no one or their world is as important as they think it is; there are infinite suns and almost as many Sun Gods sponsoring them (none of which are, or created, those suns); and reality won't crumble when your pantheon's local semi-divine hippo-monster eats them. If your pantheon has a prophecy of a great war that will end existence; chances are they just mean their own pantheon of Gods will fall to a giant wolf and snake and such; the rest of the Wheel will go right on spinning without much of a hiccup.

[KorvinStarmast]

Outside of 4E Lore, I don't see any credible evidence that Tharizdun has ever been a threat to anything outside of Greyspace;

It's that kind of complacency that may lead to Tharizdun being freed and, oops, existence ending!

The problem with these Elder beings / deities / forces is that ... like the Great Old Ones ... nobody really understands them. Even the aboleths have trouble, and they understand a lot.

As to the Lady being {whatever} I prefer my take on why Sigil exists, and her being of Sigil, and thus having extraordinary powers in that domain (which she does, heck yeah) but not in other places. (PS: if she ever visits Dark Sun, bring suntan lotion ...)

I like your point on the possibly more Vedic conceptual framework, and the Mayan one as well, but I am not sure that any of it is that cohesive. It's been cobbled together over time by different authors and different 'ideators' so it's going to be a mess along the lines of 'too many chefs spoil the soup.' So it's a hot, soupy mess, which is a Good Thing(TM).