D&D 5E [D&D 5e] Planescape - In Through the Out Door

A little mood music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PevWsWNjSZ4&

This place is wrong, all wrong.

The street careens up in front of you, stretching away into the sky, disappearing into the low-hanging, smoggy-looking clouds overhead. You feel like you are falling, constantly falling.

Looking down is no relief-- the streets are paved with multicoloured tiles set into an unwholesome-looking plaster. Mounds of filth, shredded paper and fabric fetch up against the disquieting shapes of the piles of junk and human debris beneath the row houses. You dare not look inside. The crowds around you look at you with pity or disgust-- of the many haggard faces, every third one appears markedly inhuman-- too long, too flat, the wrong colour, mottled with scars or scales, distorted into something animalistic, something out of the fears of primordial humanity.

Neither is the architecture your friend. The buildings here are all sweeping curves and serrated, scimitar-like adornments. They cast strange shadows, and looking at the way they seem to weave together against the flat gray sky, you begin to feel distinctly ill at ease.

You catch sight of one of the figures you have come to associate with the city guard-- musclebound, often mountainous men clad head to toe in glittering red armour. He looks out of place, and hovers at a street corner as if afraid to go any further.

Overwhelmed, you turn down an alley for a moment's respite, still in sight of the guard.

You fetch up against the filthy brickwork and catch your breath. Several others share the alley with you. Perhaps they had the same idea. Something passes between you-- recognition. That brief, sudden spike of familiarity that perhaps may be felt between lost tourists everywhere.

You find yourself in a strange place. What do you do?



OOC Thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-5e-Planescape-In-Through-the-Out-Door-(Full)
Rogues Gallery: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...escape-In-Through-the-Out-Door-Rogues-Gallery

Eurid kicks away the reaching tendrils of a small ooze puddle, reacting hungrily to the clumps of wet ash he's wiping from a copper urn to flick into the slime. His black tabard is wet, and crusted with multi-hued stains from the acrid drizzle of the Hive. His hair is likewise damp, and hangs in heavy curls over his downcast face as he mutters some near-silent prayer to whatever gods might have known that poor deader even ever existed.

The ceremony complete, the paladin flicks his hand a few times to cast the clinging remainder from his gloved hand. He grips the urn thoughtlessly, peering inside and wobbling it casually before discarding it among a handy heap of trash. He fingers his purse absently a moment, half to make sure it's still there, and half as a consideration on whether to stop in the Styx Oarsman for a pint. With this last little task completed, his sabbatical has officially begun--but where to go? What to do?

"Aaargh..." Graydon slumped against the stone, clutching his head. "You'd think the intersection of everywhere would at least have a decent hangover cure on hand!"

Sure he'd made it here just fine, and the place looked amazing- but he hadn't intended on slumming it quite so soon! Best keep in the eyesight of that guardian of Harmony- strange name, but if the fellow kept him from getting stabbed then Graydon would be happy to join in a rousing chorus or whatever. At least, once it stopped feeling like his brain was trying to make a jailbreak out of his skull!

Wait, there were other people here, weren't there? The illusionist straightened up a bit and squinted down the alley, taking a firmer grip on his staff as he did so.

Sigil was the City of Doors, and its name wasn't just an observation of its architecture. This was cast vividly into perspective when an empty doorway...the door long ago burned or kicked in or otherwise dissociated from its frame...suddenly flashed with a ghostly blue-violet light. It tucked in, twisting in ways that hurt the eyes to see, and then a woman lurched out. The strange vortex winked out behind her, leaving it just a a gaping hole in an abandoned building once again.

The woman was slim of build, but fairly tall, with long hair so blonde it looked almost white and eyes a peculiar violet shade. She had a long coat on that was stained and torn, and under it a suit of glittering armor; metal scales over a leather backing. A shield was strapped to her back, and she had a spear in her right hand. Most noteworthy though was the strange gleaming stone on her forehead. No, not on...IN her forehead. Set there like a gem in a ring, poking out from her skin with no visible wound. As if it had simply grown there. It was uneven in shape, and shone a dull reddish color.

She stumbled against the alley's far wall, having appeared from the portal already moving quickly. Quickly she adjusted, looking around, breathing hard, and trying to get her bearing. She noticed the others in the alley nearly immediately.

"You there," the woman called. "I need to know if this...where..."

She trailed off, her eyes following the narrow strip of the 'sky' visible out and up from the alley. The curve of the City arced overhead, instantly recognizable to anyone who'd been there before. The woman's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in horror.

"I can't be here," she said softly, dread lacing her voice. "I can't be here. I have to..."

She whirled to face the doorway she'd come through, and dug into her pouch to toss out a little handful of some kind of pale sand or dust at it.

But nothing happened. No vortex. No way out. The City of Doors could be cruel.

"Oh no," she whispered.

[section]It was the discarded urn that caught his attention. The dull plink of metal falling to the filthy tile mosaic byway. Dey's death here. But no 'bone? No drummer? No marchin' in dey's streets? Hunh. The effigy wiffled through the air, over to the rubbish heap next to the tiefling, and picked up the urn to examine it. Ayup. Look like dat nancy ole gold cup deys put Big Berta in. The effigy looked around at the decay and dirt in the causeway. Wors'n Algiers Point. Lordy. Where is I?

The effigy hovered, formless, turning over the urn round and round, as if it held the secrets of the universe.[/section]

Eurid monitors the levitating urn with all the cynical carelessness of a true Cager.

"You've had your rites, Toma," he barks in a commanding tone. "Don't go clinging to this falsehood now. You're so close to the end."

He doesn't want to get his holy symbol involved yet, so simply goes to swat the urn out of the air.

...Okay, wow, surprises!

Graydon's head was turning back and forth like his neck was a swivel-mount, trying to process what was going on; it's a random filthy alley in the Poor Quarter, yet there's still a surprise stone-horned warrioress whose speech somehow sounded like sunshine felt, for all that she was freaking out right now- and on the other hand, somebody with a tail was giving what seemed to be a pep talk to a floating burial urn.

Headache be damned, I already like this place... and I really wish I'd prepared Detect Magic this morning.

Still, he'll respond to the girl first; she's the one who actually talked to him, after all. So he'll go ahead and cough politely to catch her attention.

"You seem to have a habit of answering your own questions, Miss; but surely it's not so bad as all that? The circumstances are pretty strange, but this is a place of wonder."

[section]When Eurid tugged at the urn, the effigy resisted, grasping the urn harder and tugging back in response. The effigy darted upward ten feet above Eurid's head--urn in hand. Hoo, boy! We gots us a player! the effigy thought, sending a whispered message Eurid's way.[/section]

*clip clop clip clop* Comes the sound of hooves down the alley. A smiling, handsome satyr comes into view. The curly brown fur of his legs stands in stark contrast to the auburn colored, shimmering locks cascading down the side of his head. His grin widens as recognition of those in the alley comes over him. He reaches up and pokes the top of his head “Wake up wee one.” Slowly his hair begins to grow up out of his head before the hair sprouts large, iridescent purply pink wings and the long locks part to reveal a sleepy fairy who coos as she stretches as she tries to shake herself awake.

It was hard to think that just a week ago they had been traipsing through the ancient spires of Cendriane, when suddenly they were transported into this new place. Perhaps that was part of the ancient curse on the place, or it was a weird crossing of ley lines. Oz had been so far unable to figure out how to get back to the Feywild at that spot, lending credence to the fact that it wasn’t a true portal between realms. So for two weeks, Liliana and Oz had wandered around this extraordinary city, marveling at the strange architecture as much as ogling the eccentric denizens here, for both Oz and Liliana were explorers at heart. They had a small room at a local Inn and had been attempting to figure out how to get home, though not with much urgency.

The fairy rubs her tiny eyes, the color of which can’t be pinned down as they seem to change somewhere between the teal of the ocean waves and the bluest of skies. As her wings flap and she holds herself in the air next to Oz, she seems to have a light emanating from her lithe diminutive body and tiny sparkles fall from her. She watches the game of urn tug ‘o war with glee, a smile forming on her face.

“Greetings friends,” she speaks, her joyful voice almost sounding like tiny bells ringing, “Well met.” This slight, beautiful creature seems very out of place for the filthy, never ending streets of Sigil. “That looks like a fun game, perhaps we could play too?” She looks hopeful.

Oz shakes his head, his own long brown locks now in view. He laughs, “Liliana Elora, will you get back over here! You can’t just fly up to people and get involved in their,” he looks over the strange group, ”…Stuff. It ain’t right.”

But it is too late. The fairy is already flying towards the game.