<< PLANESCAPE >> How do you defeat the Lady of Pain?

If you don't like the idea of the Lady being effectively omnipotent in Sigil, consider this - there are many theories that she *is* Sigil. These put forwards the idea that she is an effective manifestation of the city's will. SHe's not some ominpotent god, basically a big human with more power - she is completely and utterly inhuman and alien, in a way that the planar beings, norn of belief, cannot hope to be. She is a force of nature. She is a plot device. She is not really an NPC, but more of s symbol.

To destroy her, you need to destroy Sigil.

Also, the idea of using worship to kick her out of Sigil (working on the same rules as dictate deities cannot exist in the city) does not necessarily work. Because... SPOILERS BELOW FOR FACTION WAR




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...IIRC, Faction War states that Factol Hashkar is a petitioner of the Lady (or possibly the city, or both), I can't remember the exact details though> So, despite her seeming dislike of those who would worship her, the Factol's petitioner status would indicate that he does worship her. This isn't actually very well explained in Faction War, not a product I'm fond of anyway, but it does have potentially interesting implications for attempts to oust the Lady through the power of prayer.

Calico_Jack73 said:

Okay from what I've heard the Lady of Pain is supposed to be pretty much Omnipotent. No god, artifact, or entity of any kind can hurt her much less destroy her. I refuse to believe that. There has got to be a way. Please submit your ideas and hopefully some of the Planescape Sages will offer their own guidance.

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How 'bout this: she is a myth, was always a myth and doesn't really exist.

Carnifex said:

not necessarily work. Because... SPOILERS BELOW FOR FACTION WAR

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The [*SPOILER*] Tag is great for this, btw, just remove the *s from my example. [*/SPOLIER*]


Seriously, I'd hate to have such an adversarial relationship with my players that they'd tell me that I couldn't use the Lady in whatever way I specifically chose. If I said the Lady was really just a cosmic Cheeto who could only be defeated by the being able to consume 50 ding-dongs and 50 twinkies on the second Tuesday of March, then that's what it is, AFAIC. Especially since the different supplements may not always agree, anyhow. And since this sounds like it'd be a background story anyways, what's the problem? "Oh, Sigil? It was destroyed when Grazzt found a way to kill the Lady. You gonna eat that?"

Why do I like Planescape? Because it provides the ultimate big pond for adventurers. Its were those who grown to strong on the prime go to find a challenge and do something big. You can meet with your deity, talk to angelic beings, and fight fiends. Combine this with rich history, and an even more well developed hub, namely Sigil.

That aside, I think you are missing the point with this. The Lady exists in such an omnipotent and unassailable state for a very specific reason, only a being like this could make Sigil work. You need this unbreakable and nuetral regent in order to create a nuetral city free from Fiendish Lords, Celestial Paragons, or God of many stripes. Sigil exists as a port of call and nexus that those forces and others would be fighting a pitch war for if she wasn't there.

With that in mind, there could never be a way to destroy her simple because someone would have done it already. This however is Canon, and we cannot stop you from making her a Wizardress on an S&M kick, or anything equally as absurd.

However if I might throw in a few more of my "cents", you are looking at this from the wrong perspective. She is inherently nuetral, much like a force of nature, and as such can be used to your advantage.
For example
-Many speculate that Sigil exists as the Lady's Cage, placed upon her by the Powers to keep her out of the Multiverse proper. If the fiends wanted Sigil, you could have them complete an almost forgotten, (or adventures complete) prophecy that would open her cage and free her. Thus setting something with vasts amount of payback lose upon the powers, (something fiends would enjoy)
-Perhaps the Lady is actually a manifestation of the Multiverse itself, and as fiends gradually conqueror more and more of it, you find her becoming more fiend like, and more tainted.
-Perhaps she is the Romani creator/progiditor, thus if her children were to be slain in vast numbers, she would begin weaking.
-Perhaps she is a representation of the Spire/center of the universe. Suppose the fiends launch a pitched war against the Romani and win, they begin to savage the tower with newly developed "technology", and begin to threaten her very being.

The Point is, you are looking at it the Wrong way. You are seeing everything as a physical assault or destroy her directly. Somethings just can't be accomplished that way.

First you actually have to decide what the lady is, (no answer in Canon), and then your explaination of how you are going about it will make sense to your rules lawyer. Keep in mind that Planewalker is the place for 3e planescape, so you should probably visit there first.

I happen to know that she is alergic to asprin. She totally afraid of it.

I say that you drop a metric ton of it on her.

That would do it.

Or you could get Rose Estes to write about her.

Canon-wise? You're out of luck.

Theory-wise? Well, I don't think that's too off-base. Even a mountain can be ground to dust or swallowed up, with enough time. The point is, though, it's not exactly feasible for an individual or, say, an adventuring party, to do.

First you have to define the Lady to some degree, in a way that makes sense with what's already established; i.e., that she's nigh-on omnipotent within Sigil.

As has already been mentioned, you could view her as a manifestation of Sigil itself. In which case, you want to kill the Lady, you have to destroy the city. As most of the folk who've attacked Sigil want it for their own, this essentially means that she's invulnerable. The necessary resources to destroy Sigil, which would be vast, make it an infeasible move to do due to the negligable benefit one would get from destroying the city.

Personally, I'm not much keen on the idea of overgods. However, one theory of my own is that the Lady of Pain is, quite possibly, not one figure, but many. She represents a number of powerful deities who keep Sigil neutral. This is why it's effectively impossible to defeat her or take out the city; she's probably, for all intents and purposes in this example, the will of an entire pantheon and all its divine servants (though those servants likely don't know that they're actively working to keep Sigil safe - only the deities involved would). She can maze an army of fiends or flay Aoskar because, quite simply, the concerted effort of multiple gods isn't exactly easy to face off against.

Then, and this is possibly the most Planescape-esque explanation for it, you cap off the Lady of Pain with belief. You tie her down with worshippers, thus defining her, bit by bit. You begin espousing the idea that the Lady of Pain isn't the end all, be all of power, preaching that she, too, is as mortal as anything else in the universe. You start preventing certain types of traffic from getting into Sigil - say, stymie the arrival of outsiders from Baator, for example (not entirely impossible if you were, say, Asmodeus - but he likely wouldn't do that, as it would put him at a severe disadvantage, at least initially, even if the idea eventually worked out, which it might not). Change the fundamental nature of of Sigil or the Lady of Pain, in one way or another, and you've opened her up to destruction.

All of these are somewhat feasible, and show why she's never been seriously challenged. The effort it would take to destroy Sigil would likely destroy whomever made the attempt in the process. A unified pantheon (perhaps not in the strictest sense of Norse or Egyptian, for example, but a collection all the same) of deities are certainly going to be able to do some truly fantastic things. Trying to change the beliefs one has about the Lady of Pain or Sigil on the scale necessary would be a massive endeavor, and the sort of individuals who could swing Sigil away from neutrality by cutting out a certain type of traffic (archons, modrons, whatever) wouldn't want to because of the disadvantage it would put them at.

They're all fairly god-like undertakings, that probably aren't going to be done by just hacking and hewing.

I for one don't think the Lady of Pain should be any more invulnerable than a deity, and everyone has their sprig of mistletoe or Achilles Heel to bring them low, so giving some way to destroy her or Sigil isn't too out of line, but it should be in some way that's near impossible to accomplish, that even an army of fiends and a god or two wouldn't likely succeed at.

Toras said:

The Lady exists in such an omnipotent and unassable state for a very specific reason, only a being like this could make Sigil work.

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What a great word! I'm totally stealing this for use in my games, Toras.

Next time the PC's meet a BBEG and say, "We're about to kick your ass!", the BBEG will respond, "Sorry, I'm completely unassable."

I smell epic feat!

Lets look at with with logic:

-You cannot kill her in a fight
-She has control over sigil
-She is not a diety
-She can kill anyone in sigil

We want here to die. Fool her into think she (or part of here) is someone else. She kills it she dies.

If that doesn't work Ao vs Lady of pain?

simmo said:

Another method is to get a big black marker pen and erase her name from every RPG product that you own.

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Nah. Kiaransalee tried that with Orcus, and we saw how well <i>that</i> worked...

It may be impossible to destroy Sigil if the Lady and Sigil are a two faces of the same coin.

That said, it may be possible to isolate Sigil by severing all planar connections in and out of the city at their outside Sigil origins, and then use a siege or some powerful magics to physically separate the city from its environment.

Perhaps 'shift' Sigil to the Far Realm by some method.

Then let the party begin....