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

[JacktheRabbit]

If you want an absolute official way to destroy the Lady there is not one per say. The closest you could come to it is to make her irrelevant. To do this one would have to map out every portal in Sigil. Then travel to the other end of each one and close it up.

Block one with 50 feet of rock so anyone going through instantly dies. Reroute a magma flow to go over another one. At the same time put a anti-magic field over the portal on the side you close up.

Now travel to and from Sigil becomes impossible. Since portals are the only way in and out you will have effectively destroyed the Lady by making her and her entire city completely pointless. Nowhere in any of the rules does it say that the Lady has power ouside of the city or that she can create new portals. She merely has control over the existing ones.

Would this work? In theory yes. But there are thousands of portals and its not known if all of them are even known about. So it would be impractical. I would take legions of creatures or thousands of years. But then both are a commodity that fiends have at their disposal.

 

[jessemock]

Speak her True Name: Dolores.



Or has somebody else made this joke already?

Whatever.

What shall rest of thee then, what remain (when we kill you in D&D),
O mystic and sombre Dolores,
Our Lady of Pain?

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Die Vecna Die! takes the heroes from the Greyhawk campaign to the demiplane of Ravenloft and then to the Planescape city of Sigil. However, none of the material from those settings is required for play.

It's hard to take something as Planescape canon when it was written for folks that don't play Planescape.

 

[Carnifex]

He was in Sigil that broke what I would expect to be rule #1 in her book.

From what I know of the module... (poossible spoiler, if I've got this even vaguely right)...

Spoiler

wasn't Vecna *not* a god at the time he entered Sigil, but became one once he was in there? Or something like that...

 

[SkidAce]

It's hard to take something as Planescape canon when it was written for folks that don't play Planescape.

I don't play Greyhawk...I use a homebrew...I used the module...I play Planescape.

But it's background material does start in Greyhawk so I kinda know what you mean.

The broad statement just disturbed me for some reason.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

The broad statement just disturbed me for some reason.

It's not to say that Planescape folks can't use it (or even adopt the events as having happened), but the three settings it incorporates are only relevant if the group is actually using all three (at least, for the sake of the adventure). My point is mostly that, being that you can run the module without any of the settings, one might question how accurate the module actually is to canon, or how "official" the plot twists it presents are.

Also of note is that, from what I recall, it didn't have the setting logo on it (did it have any setting logo?). Going into the store looking for material on Planescape, there's nothing about the module that would at all grab my attention as a Planescape product. If I were buying Planescape-only, which is close to the truth at that time, I would have passed it up as "yet another" Vecna adventure. In short, it's not being marketed or packaged as a Planescape module puts it outside (but alongside and usable with) Planescape.

Besides, I'm waiting for an answer to Carifex's question... If he's right, then Die, Vecna, Die isn't the only example of such an occurance (the PS module Harbinger House had a similar event, although under an entirely different set of circumstances, and also had a sizable/dramatic example of what Lady worship brings the worshippers).

 

[Shemeska]

Now travel to and from Sigil becomes impossible. Since portals are the only way in and out you will have effectively destroyed the Lady by making her and her entire city completely pointless. Nowhere in any of the rules does it say that the Lady has power ouside of the city or that she can create new portals. She merely has control over the existing ones.

The Lady has control over the function and location of all portals in and out of Sigil. This includes changing the location of either end of a portal as well. She can make new ones and remove old ones at will.

As far as 'nowhere in the rules' that being printed, I'll refer you to the Tempest of Doors in 'Faction War'. That solidly handles that particular argument.

Irony has it perhaps that I found this thread originally to be a fight against ruleslawyers who couldn't bring themselves to believe that not everything can or should be killed with their +45 godkilling sword of uberness. Some things just exist outside that particular mindset of number munching, hack'n'slash play. Now I find myself being indirectly called a rules lawyer and a fanboy. *chuckle* That's a first for me actually.

 

[Shemeska]

Also of note is that, from what I recall, it didn't have the setting logo on it (did it have any setting logo?). Going into the store looking for material on Planescape, there's nothing about the module that would at all grab my attention as a Planescape product. If I were buying Planescape-only, which is close to the truth at that time, I would have passed it up as "yet another" Vecna adventure. In short, it's not being marketed or packaged as a Planescape module puts it outside (but alongside and usable with) Planescape.

Besides, I'm waiting for an answer to Carifex's question... If he's right, then Die, Vecna, Die isn't the only example of such an occurance (the PS module Harbinger House had a similar event, although under an entirely different set of circumstances, and also had a sizable/dramatic example of what Lady worship brings the worshippers).

No, 'Die Vecna Die' didn't have the Planescape logo, just the generic 2e DnD logo. This, among the continuity issues was one of the reasons why Planewalker was in a difficult position regarding using that module fully, using it modified (as we did), or not using it at all.

Regarding 'Harbinger House', damn fine module. Another example of a perceived loophole in The Lady's laws. You cannot enter Sigil as a god, however you can ascend to deityhood while inside the city. In the case of the module someone did just that. They also got shunted out the nearest portal as soon as that happened. However they were not killed, which opens up some questions certainly.

The Focrux artifact in the module was, it seems, allowed to exist in some sense within Sigil since the Dabus had a role in giving the Godsmen stewardship over the house and control over the artifact within it. At the end of the module, the nature if the house, and the artifact were abused by another set of persons and it was destroyed. The moment the artifact was destroyed, several folks got flayed and a newly risen deity was booted from the city.

You might of course say that a deity inside Harbinger house would still be blocked from entering the rest of the city at large, or that the events of the module were already known to happen, and were allowed to happen the way they did. 'Faction War' certainly pins down that The Lady is aware of events in Sigil in a way that transcends the normal notions of time and space, allowing Her to set up past and future events to fall into desired outcomes. This is perhaps alluded to again within 'Doors to the Unknown'.

The Focrux also was of unknown origin, and is a thorny question about both its own power and makers, as well as the nature of The Lady. We don't know who made it, why, or how old it has been there. Ancient is the best guess I can put forwards, but lots of open questions there. Very fun module.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Irony has it perhaps that I found this thread originally to be a fight against ruleslawyers who couldn't bring themselves to believe that not everything can or should be killed with their +45 godkilling sword of uberness. Some things just exist outside that particular mindset of number munching, hack'n'slash play. Now I find myself being indirectly called a rules lawyer and a fanboy. *chuckle* That's a first for me actually.

Actually the discussion was to tap the knowledge of the ENWorld community to find out if there was a rules supported way to defeat the Lady of Pain to satisfy rules lawyers in my group. I don't want my players to go home grumbling that their DM stomped all over a setting that they hold dear in their hearts but I also like the idea of the Planar Armageddon. The same issue has evidenced itself in the failing popularity of Dragonlance as too many players feel like the setting MUST stay faithful to the novels and get ticked off if the DM decides to veer from the main plotline by too much.

 

[Orius]

That is the joy of remembering this is a game. As long as your decisions are consistent you can make whatever decision you want as a DM. If you want Sigil to be the real power and the Lady to be just the keeper who can get kicked out then fine.

The problem here is annoying rules lawyers who cannot seem to understand that rules for their campaigns or even those that print are the only way things can happen. If a campaign wants to destroy the Lady and change Sigil then God damn it that is what happens. No amount of fanboy babbling about how "uber and unstoppable" the Lady is will amount to anything.

True enough. This started with the D&D Armageddon thread, with the idea of Sigil falling under siege. If a DM wants to that, fine. It's the DM's job to run the campaign.

Like people said, the Lady of Pain is there to maintain a certain amount of internal campaign logic. If you've got a city that has portals to pretty much anywhere in existance, then why hasn't a god, the fiends, or any other very powerful being taken it over already? That's really the purpose of the Lady, and that's why Planescape fans start "babbling" about her. If you're not playing a standard Planescape game, or any sort of D&D setting which doesn't use Sigil in it's cosmology, then do whatever you want.