Calico_Jack73
First Post
realmprotector said:
Do not underestimate the power of the force.
<< PLANESCAPE >> How do you defeat the Lady of Pain?
Do not underestimate the power of the force.
Calico_Jack73
First Post
Crothian said:As long as she is undefined, it's impossible to say. But waking up Cthulhu might cause more problems then it solves.
Maybe Cthulhu's resting place IS Sigil and the Lady is there to ensure he doesn't wake?
"That which is not dead may eternal lie, and in strange aeons death may die." Cthulhu can't die so her little flaying trick wouldn't work... it'd just make him really upset.
orangefruitbat
Explorer
You could:
1) Trick her into leaving Sigil (alternatively, worship her so she becomes divine and is kicked out by her own rules)
2) Reflect her into one of her own Mazes
3) Consume her with an entity of non-euclidian geometry
4) Seal off Sigil from the Multiverse and have her starve
5) Unleash the Furies upon her
6) Slay her before she was even born
7) Ask her if she was happy
8) Replace her and become the new Lady of Pain (much like the countless placeholders before)
9) Attack her with the First weapon in the multiverse that caused the death of another
10) Death comes for a visit (or any other of the Endless)
11) Pull a Vecna, but unlike the lich, win!
12) Have a lowly kobold child throw a rock at her
The trick with the Lady isn't that she's got a bazillion HP or +100 SR but that she's something other. Once you as DM define what that is, then there should be no shortage of creative ways to remove her from the game. I too am sick of the Lady is sooo powerful fetishists.
1) Trick her into leaving Sigil (alternatively, worship her so she becomes divine and is kicked out by her own rules)
2) Reflect her into one of her own Mazes
3) Consume her with an entity of non-euclidian geometry
4) Seal off Sigil from the Multiverse and have her starve
5) Unleash the Furies upon her
6) Slay her before she was even born
7) Ask her if she was happy
8) Replace her and become the new Lady of Pain (much like the countless placeholders before)
9) Attack her with the First weapon in the multiverse that caused the death of another
10) Death comes for a visit (or any other of the Endless)
11) Pull a Vecna, but unlike the lich, win!
12) Have a lowly kobold child throw a rock at her
The trick with the Lady isn't that she's got a bazillion HP or +100 SR but that she's something other. Once you as DM define what that is, then there should be no shortage of creative ways to remove her from the game. I too am sick of the Lady is sooo powerful fetishists.
JesterPoet
First Post
orangefruitbat said:
And we all know that Furries are the top of the food chain when it comes to fetishists... This just might work!
Wait... maybe I read that wrong...
orangefruitbat
Explorer
JesterPoet said:
I like your idea better
With only a smattering of the Planescape under my belt, I would guess the first step in defeating her would be to find out what she is. Until anyone has any idea what she is, then effectively there is no way to defeat her.
I can think of one place that would be possible, mind you this is all conjecture. Sigil is at the top of an infinitely tall spire at the very center of Concordant Opposition, in other words the very center of the planes. (How an infinitely tall spire can have a top or how something of infinite size can have a center should give you a relative idea of the magnitude of the problem you are facing). Sigil is inside a torus (a donut shaped structure). It has a hole in the center. It is in this hole that I would reason the answer to the riddle of the Lady of Pain can be found and perhaps much more.
Of course, this leads to a few problems in and of itself. The Lady of Pain does not take kindly to people digging through her city to find out what is outside. Inside of Sigil her demonstrable seems pretty much insurmountable. It is suspected that gods are banned from Sigil by her power. Nothing short of a god would even come close to challenging her and even then Aoskar will attest that a godhead is not enough to insure victory.
On the other hand you could scale the infinitely tall spire. All you would need is infinite speed. It is also known that those who try and climb the spire usually end up dead. It is for this reason that I believe there are answers to be found just outside of Sigil, because someone is protecting it.
The Lady of Pain is not unkillable by Planescape canon, to my understanding. They leave her an enigma never defining her. Her motives are completely unknown, just like her nature. But it is very apparent she is VERY difficult to kill, as she has been around a long time.
I can think of one place that would be possible, mind you this is all conjecture. Sigil is at the top of an infinitely tall spire at the very center of Concordant Opposition, in other words the very center of the planes. (How an infinitely tall spire can have a top or how something of infinite size can have a center should give you a relative idea of the magnitude of the problem you are facing). Sigil is inside a torus (a donut shaped structure). It has a hole in the center. It is in this hole that I would reason the answer to the riddle of the Lady of Pain can be found and perhaps much more.
Of course, this leads to a few problems in and of itself. The Lady of Pain does not take kindly to people digging through her city to find out what is outside. Inside of Sigil her demonstrable seems pretty much insurmountable. It is suspected that gods are banned from Sigil by her power. Nothing short of a god would even come close to challenging her and even then Aoskar will attest that a godhead is not enough to insure victory.
On the other hand you could scale the infinitely tall spire. All you would need is infinite speed. It is also known that those who try and climb the spire usually end up dead. It is for this reason that I believe there are answers to be found just outside of Sigil, because someone is protecting it.
The Lady of Pain is not unkillable by Planescape canon, to my understanding. They leave her an enigma never defining her. Her motives are completely unknown, just like her nature. But it is very apparent she is VERY difficult to kill, as she has been around a long time.
Shemeska
Adventurer
At the risk of sounding arrogant, I'll quote myself here from the Planewalker 'Planescape Campaign Setting, Chapter 7: Sigil':
DM’s Dark: Using the Lady
The Lady of Pain is less an NPC than a setting mechanic. She transcends any game mechanic and has no stats. Should She be directly challenged by PC’s or NPC’s, nothing they do should be capable of hitting or harming Her. Not a wish, not a miracle, not even epic spells. Even the overpowers cannot defy the barriers preventing powers from entering the Cage (not that such beings tend to have interests beyond their sphere of influence anyways).
Within Sigil, the Lady of Pain should be considered as close to all powerful as needed. That said, the Lady should not be overexposed or used outside of rare occasions lest She lose the mystique and grandeur that surrounds Her, along with the unknown details of Her history and true connection to Sigil or indeed roll within the multiverse itself.
Those who challenge the Lady are mazed or flayed with no sympathy, malice, or quarter given by Her Serenity. Those who harm Sigil or disrupt the life of the city in grand fashion will suffer the same fate, as will those who seek to delve too deeply into the secrets of the Lady (if they manage to escape insanity in their quest). Some things are beyond the scope of the PC’s in the setting, and interacting with the Lady in all but the most rare and unique fashion should be avoided. At most, a character may see the Lady floating silently down a street in Sigil, or perhaps once in the course of a long and well-developed campaign a PC may witness a flaying or an edict given by the Lady to them or others. Such edicts should be reserved for campaign defining events with major ramifications within Sigil.
Considering all this, the Lady is not omnipotent (not completely, anyways). In terms of the metaplot, certain “weaknesses” have been exploited in the past, and the rare NPC has seemingly come close to gaining some victory over Her, only to ultimately fail (and sometimes with evidence such attempts were merely part of the Lady’s design). In any case, the Lady should always remain above and beyond the ambitions of the PCs.
DM’s Dark: Using the Lady
The Lady of Pain is less an NPC than a setting mechanic. She transcends any game mechanic and has no stats. Should She be directly challenged by PC’s or NPC’s, nothing they do should be capable of hitting or harming Her. Not a wish, not a miracle, not even epic spells. Even the overpowers cannot defy the barriers preventing powers from entering the Cage (not that such beings tend to have interests beyond their sphere of influence anyways).
Within Sigil, the Lady of Pain should be considered as close to all powerful as needed. That said, the Lady should not be overexposed or used outside of rare occasions lest She lose the mystique and grandeur that surrounds Her, along with the unknown details of Her history and true connection to Sigil or indeed roll within the multiverse itself.
Those who challenge the Lady are mazed or flayed with no sympathy, malice, or quarter given by Her Serenity. Those who harm Sigil or disrupt the life of the city in grand fashion will suffer the same fate, as will those who seek to delve too deeply into the secrets of the Lady (if they manage to escape insanity in their quest). Some things are beyond the scope of the PC’s in the setting, and interacting with the Lady in all but the most rare and unique fashion should be avoided. At most, a character may see the Lady floating silently down a street in Sigil, or perhaps once in the course of a long and well-developed campaign a PC may witness a flaying or an edict given by the Lady to them or others. Such edicts should be reserved for campaign defining events with major ramifications within Sigil.
Considering all this, the Lady is not omnipotent (not completely, anyways). In terms of the metaplot, certain “weaknesses” have been exploited in the past, and the rare NPC has seemingly come close to gaining some victory over Her, only to ultimately fail (and sometimes with evidence such attempts were merely part of the Lady’s design). In any case, the Lady should always remain above and beyond the ambitions of the PCs.
Last edited:
Shemeska
Adventurer
More from Planewalker copied here (it's a nice summary of the information from 2e and now in 3e, and I don't wish to repeat myself)
The Lady
The planes have mysteries cutter, and not all of them have answers. Walk the planes long enough and that’s something you’ll take to heart. Some things just ARE. You don’t question them, you don’t fight them, and you don’t so much as stand in their way. They just exist and you accept it.
Not the lady of pain, no, the Lady of Pain. Her Serenity, Her Dread Majesty, and the ultimate power in Sigil (perhaps anywhere else, it’s reckoned by some). She keeps and controls the portals of the City of Doors, and She bars the powers from entering. Appearing as a tall, robed woman with Her face sprouting a halo and headdress of blades from Her very flesh, She floats silently above the streets of Sigil. She is the protector of Sigil and, by that, all of its inhabitants, not that She likely cares one way or another for anyone in the city. But any threats to Sigil itself or to Her own power and She reacts. During these select few times in Sigil’s history, terrible Her fury has been, and most Cagers prefer to forget such occurrences.
From time to time, She may randomly float down an avenue, passively observing before vanishing around a corner without a trace. Wise bloods look away and avert their eyes, or quickly find business elsewhere. She never speaks; never has in the history of Sigil as far as any know. In the scant few times She’s needed to make Her will known directly She’s done so through one of Her servants, the dabus, as She floats silently behind them, never a mark of emotion crossing Her face. Not that it’s wise to stare into that continence.
She’s not a god, get that straight. She’s something else, more or less; none know the dark of it. But never worship Her, not even in jest. Those who do are found dead; their skin flayed from their bones, seen walking through Sigil when the Lady appears and Her shadow reaches out to strike them. Wherever Her bladed, serrated shadow touches, their body erupts with slashes, wounds and gouges as if from a storm of knives and razors. None have ever survived the touch of Her shadow, nor even been successfully resurrected afterwards. They die, that is certain, for when She acts, She acts with certainty.
The chant even goes that centuries ago, before the Great Upheaval, the Lady penned a true deity into the dead book, Aoskar, the self-proclaimed Portal Father and patron of planewalkers and opportunity. She killed him, simple as that. They say for one reason or another he offended Her, or plotted to take the City of Doors for himself.
The Portal Father
Long ago, before the Shattered Temple District gained its name and the Athar claimed the ruins as their own, the Shattered Temple was the High Temple of Aoskar. At its height, Aoskar claimed nearly half of the residents of the Cage as his worshippers, with many of them whispering a prayer to him before passing into or out of a portal to Sigil. In fact, eventually the worship of Aoskar become nearly synonymous with the City of Doors itself, and a time came when berks began to worship the Lady of Pain as an aspect of him.
Whatever his ultimate reasons, Aoskar’s final offense to the Lady was when one of the dabus took up the robes of his priesthood and endorsed the worship of the Father of Portals, forsaking Her Serenity in doing so. That dabus, still alive and forsaken by his own kind, is known as Fell. None besides him and the Lady know the true dark of what exactly happened, save that the temple, and all within were obliterated in what would be called by some graybeards as the Day of Blades and Fury. The temple was reduced to rubble along with the city surrounding it, and Aoskar, along with all of his mortal worshippers throughout the multiverse, were killed by the lancing shadow of Her Serenity in a single moment of horror. Some claim to have seen the withered husk of Aoskar upon the Astral, its stony face locked into a gasp of terror, one petrified arm raised as if to ward off some attack, and pierced through with glimmering, metallic blades.
The symbols and trappings of the faith of Aoskar have since then been considered anathema within Sigil, such was Her fury that day to not only kill a greater power but all of his mortal host as well. Such are the lengths that the Lady will go to protect Her city and Her position within.
Speculation on the true nature of the Lady is rife among scholars, sages, and the common folks of Sigil alike. But answers are never forthcoming from any source. Still, the common chant, most likely all screed without a shred of proof, holds a number of common myths. Some say that the Lady is a mortal who found Sigil and used it to grant Herself immeasurable power. Other rumors hold that She is a renegade, or risen, Tanar’ri lord from the Abyss. Others say that she was hatched from a dabus egg [Whatever that is – The Editor] by Io, the draconic overpower. A few even suggest She may simply be an illusion of the dabus themselves, or their queen, much like that among bees in a hive. Now dead sages, rumored mazed or flayed, have claimed that the Lady is not the ruler of Sigil, but its ultimate prisoner. After all, why else might Sigil be called the Cage? Some have compared the Lady to an overpower, or some unique, but nondivine being, so ancient as to defy mortal definitions. A being who exists to keep Sigil free of any and all divine influences, perhaps in an attempt to balance the planes themselves.
Of course, not a shred of proof exists to shed a light upon the mystery. And those who seek to delve too deeply into the Lady’s secrets tend to vanish without a trace, gone, whisked away on the winds of oblivion.
The Lady
The planes have mysteries cutter, and not all of them have answers. Walk the planes long enough and that’s something you’ll take to heart. Some things just ARE. You don’t question them, you don’t fight them, and you don’t so much as stand in their way. They just exist and you accept it.
Not the lady of pain, no, the Lady of Pain. Her Serenity, Her Dread Majesty, and the ultimate power in Sigil (perhaps anywhere else, it’s reckoned by some). She keeps and controls the portals of the City of Doors, and She bars the powers from entering. Appearing as a tall, robed woman with Her face sprouting a halo and headdress of blades from Her very flesh, She floats silently above the streets of Sigil. She is the protector of Sigil and, by that, all of its inhabitants, not that She likely cares one way or another for anyone in the city. But any threats to Sigil itself or to Her own power and She reacts. During these select few times in Sigil’s history, terrible Her fury has been, and most Cagers prefer to forget such occurrences.
From time to time, She may randomly float down an avenue, passively observing before vanishing around a corner without a trace. Wise bloods look away and avert their eyes, or quickly find business elsewhere. She never speaks; never has in the history of Sigil as far as any know. In the scant few times She’s needed to make Her will known directly She’s done so through one of Her servants, the dabus, as She floats silently behind them, never a mark of emotion crossing Her face. Not that it’s wise to stare into that continence.
She’s not a god, get that straight. She’s something else, more or less; none know the dark of it. But never worship Her, not even in jest. Those who do are found dead; their skin flayed from their bones, seen walking through Sigil when the Lady appears and Her shadow reaches out to strike them. Wherever Her bladed, serrated shadow touches, their body erupts with slashes, wounds and gouges as if from a storm of knives and razors. None have ever survived the touch of Her shadow, nor even been successfully resurrected afterwards. They die, that is certain, for when She acts, She acts with certainty.
The chant even goes that centuries ago, before the Great Upheaval, the Lady penned a true deity into the dead book, Aoskar, the self-proclaimed Portal Father and patron of planewalkers and opportunity. She killed him, simple as that. They say for one reason or another he offended Her, or plotted to take the City of Doors for himself.
The Portal Father
Long ago, before the Shattered Temple District gained its name and the Athar claimed the ruins as their own, the Shattered Temple was the High Temple of Aoskar. At its height, Aoskar claimed nearly half of the residents of the Cage as his worshippers, with many of them whispering a prayer to him before passing into or out of a portal to Sigil. In fact, eventually the worship of Aoskar become nearly synonymous with the City of Doors itself, and a time came when berks began to worship the Lady of Pain as an aspect of him.
Whatever his ultimate reasons, Aoskar’s final offense to the Lady was when one of the dabus took up the robes of his priesthood and endorsed the worship of the Father of Portals, forsaking Her Serenity in doing so. That dabus, still alive and forsaken by his own kind, is known as Fell. None besides him and the Lady know the true dark of what exactly happened, save that the temple, and all within were obliterated in what would be called by some graybeards as the Day of Blades and Fury. The temple was reduced to rubble along with the city surrounding it, and Aoskar, along with all of his mortal worshippers throughout the multiverse, were killed by the lancing shadow of Her Serenity in a single moment of horror. Some claim to have seen the withered husk of Aoskar upon the Astral, its stony face locked into a gasp of terror, one petrified arm raised as if to ward off some attack, and pierced through with glimmering, metallic blades.
The symbols and trappings of the faith of Aoskar have since then been considered anathema within Sigil, such was Her fury that day to not only kill a greater power but all of his mortal host as well. Such are the lengths that the Lady will go to protect Her city and Her position within.
Speculation on the true nature of the Lady is rife among scholars, sages, and the common folks of Sigil alike. But answers are never forthcoming from any source. Still, the common chant, most likely all screed without a shred of proof, holds a number of common myths. Some say that the Lady is a mortal who found Sigil and used it to grant Herself immeasurable power. Other rumors hold that She is a renegade, or risen, Tanar’ri lord from the Abyss. Others say that she was hatched from a dabus egg [Whatever that is – The Editor] by Io, the draconic overpower. A few even suggest She may simply be an illusion of the dabus themselves, or their queen, much like that among bees in a hive. Now dead sages, rumored mazed or flayed, have claimed that the Lady is not the ruler of Sigil, but its ultimate prisoner. After all, why else might Sigil be called the Cage? Some have compared the Lady to an overpower, or some unique, but nondivine being, so ancient as to defy mortal definitions. A being who exists to keep Sigil free of any and all divine influences, perhaps in an attempt to balance the planes themselves.
Of course, not a shred of proof exists to shed a light upon the mystery. And those who seek to delve too deeply into the Lady’s secrets tend to vanish without a trace, gone, whisked away on the winds of oblivion.
Similar Threads
