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

[Shemeska]

Has it ever been decided if the Lady is all powerful only while she is in Sigil or would she be all powerful if she ever left Sigil. The reason I was asking is because you could put a bag of holding inside of a portable hole (or whichever way it is supposed to go) to open an astral rift to suck her and everything else around the rip into the astral plane. If she is still all powerful then no big deal for her. If not then she'd be in a world of hurt if some of the more powerful entities on the Astral were to get wind of her presence.

Well, The Lady has never been observed outside of Sigil, so it's only speculation there. It boils down to if you think The Lady controls Sigil or if Sigil empowers The Lady. Most signs point to this being the former. [She's never been observed outside Sigil 'herself' anyways, though there's evidence of Her symbols and signs of Her actions on Acheron in 'Doors to the Unknown']

As far as two bags of holding go, I would say either they wouldn't have the desired effect while in Sigil, or if they did not much would happen. The portion of the Astral that Sigil overlaps is cut off and sequestered away from the rest of the plane. You can't enter or leave the city by way of the Astral, only by the portals. So sure you might have a sudden tear into the Astral, but it won't lead anyways really except an empty volume of the Astral that doesn't seem to make sense of the Astral or play by the normal rules of the plane.

I doubt that The Lady would be drifting along the streets of Sigil at the same time you decided to plunge two bags of holding onto each other. You might find yourself mazed at the same instant you start to push them into each other, or you might find yourself standing on top of that rift w/ The Lady nowhere in sight.

It'd take more than that in other words, but nice try. Noone ever said She played by the same rules as anyone else.

 

[Whitey]

Whitey didn't post on this thread to win an argument - or to start one. It's not worth getting that irritated or irritating someone else that much over a couple paragraphs of young adult fiction or an unsupported game setting.
It's unfortunate that it'd take such literal rules interpretations, misuse of items, and really some underhanded tactics to depose the 'lady'. They're plausible, which is more what Calico Jack was asking for, if a little shady. If it's a question of shady rules overcoming a shady plot device, isn't overcoming that plot device in favor of another device what the whole thread is about? The question wasn't about how it can't be done, or how someone would be wrong to even try such a thing.

Mentioning the earth weird is mostly to illustrate an earlier point - as ridiculous as it would be to have a PC weird pointing out random folks and declaring them dead just because the rules say so, it is equally ridiculous to have a DM use the 'lady' to declare ambitious PCs dead just because the rules say so. Accomplishing Jack's campaign goal (and the premise of Paka's story hour) may well require some leeway with rules or setting canon - that's the DM prerogative. But it's not just DM prerogative. There are plausible, if not wonderful, approaches mentioned in this thread, which adhere just as dogmatically to the rules 'canon' as to setting 'canon'.

 

[Malakar]

Canon: What is?

Ok folks.
I feel it is time to give a point out to what canon is. It is what is published and the overplot that the designers or a specific designated group decides will be official. In the end the Canon in question is what a group that has been given jurisdiction decides is canon. The canon is question is for the current publication of planescape using the current third edition ruleset. Wotc has given the jurisdiction for this to the folks at planewalker.

In the end no game run by a gm with players is ever canon. Unless it was video taped and released to the public somehow with wotc's blessing it will never be canon. Why? Because in order to play at all you have to diverge from canon because nothing is published about your specific character existing or the route that your specific game plot takes. People here are treating Planescape Canon as a set or rules when it is not. The lady can not be killed in canon because no one has published her being killed in canon. Thus the question of how she can be killed in canon is irrelevent. However the question of based on canon what might be some good ways to kill her would be relavent.

Thank you

 

[Zappo]

I agree with Malakar, and that's why I would suggest calico_jack to just hit his rules lawyer with a brick and do what he feels best for his campaign.

 

[Malakar]

Remember. Make that a gold brick with a twist of lemon.

 

[Phasmus]

My take on the matter is that there is a certain mathematical slant to the planes. For example, the spire seems like the place where the multiverse divides by zero. Sigil itself, in my mind, represents the 'average' of the planes as a whole; hence the mixing of every other part of reality, and the general remorseless neutrality of The Lady herself. Most importantly to this discussion, Sigil (and The Lady) present an uninvertible function. (Hypothetically, changing Sigil requires exactly as much effort as changing the multiverse itself.)

So, the key here is that you don't try to destroy The Lady or take over Sigil. You take over the multiverse, and in the process Sigil and The Lady become yours as an 'existential bonus prize'. In the meantime, for our specific case, the state of Sigil could serve as an ominous indicator of the success of the lower-planar armies. The more hellish Sigil becomes, and the more actively evil The Lady becomes in her actions and edicts, the closer to ultimate victory the fiendish and abyssal armies must be.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Remember. Make that a gold brick with a twist of lemon.

alarge gold brick the Hitchhiker's Trilogy rocks. Wait-could the flying black Guide take out the Lady? It seems pretty darn omnipotent (benn a while since I read the books).

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

This thread reminds me of a song...
I stand on the brink of my own demise,
Falling again for another
Mistress of burden to idolize,
Hoping that one of them will decide to let me in...

 

[Shemeska]

This thread reminds me of a song...
I stand on the brink of my own demise,
Falling again for another
Mistress of burden to idolize,
Hoping that one of them will decide to let me in...

Hmm... perhaps it's time to post Swinburne's 'Dolores'

 

[Malakar]

No it would simply upon being questioned about the lady list "Don't worship, and don't mess with"