Statting Up Aditi/Lady of Pain

[FleshEatingBlackFlutterby]

Has anyone done this or would anyone be willing to do this? Aditi being Lady Fate (First One) and The Lady of Pain being her Avatar (Elder One) or possibly her Aspect (Intermediate Deity)?

I recall some lore about her possibly being a daughter of Poseidon or a reformed Tanar'ri Lord (maybe even coming from or having her own race of Cenobite style epic level Pain/Portal demons (possibly abominations) modeled after her and the dabus).

Any of these possibilities could be interesting for epic monsters.
I realize The Lady of Pain is a sacred cow for some people, but she deserves to be statted up and fleshed out Immortal's Handbook style.

 

[dave2008]

Has anyone done this or would anyone be willing to do this? Aditi being Lady Fate (First One) and The Lady of Pain being her Avatar (Elder One) or possibly her Aspect (Intermediate Deity)?

I recall some lore about her possibly being a daughter of Poseidon or a reformed Tanar'ri Lord (maybe even coming from or having her own race of Cenobite style epic level Pain/Portal demons (possibly abominations) modeled after her and the dabus).

Any of these possibilities could be interesting for epic monsters.
I realize The Lady of Pain is a sacred cow for some people, but she deserves to be statted up and fleshed out Immortal's Handbook style.

I made stats for her in 5e and I am working on an update. But I've never made stats for 3e era monsters design.

 

[Alzrius]

Has anyone done this or would anyone be willing to do this? Aditi being Lady Fate (First One) and The Lady of Pain being her Avatar (Elder One) or possibly her Aspect (Intermediate Deity)?

I recall some lore about her possibly being a daughter of Poseidon or a reformed Tanar'ri Lord (maybe even coming from or having her own race of Cenobite style epic level Pain/Portal demons (possibly abominations) modeled after her and the dabus).

Any of these possibilities could be interesting for epic monsters.
I realize The Lady of Pain is a sacred cow for some people, but she deserves to be statted up and fleshed out Immortal's Handbook style.

As I recall, the bit about her being Poseidon's daughter was from the Pages of Pain novel, but I never actually read that so I can't comment on it.

That said, according to what we're told in Die Vecna Die! she's supposedly not quite strong enough to force Vecna (a greater god at that time) out of Sigil...but only because she's deliberately not taking her "true, resplendent form," knowing that doing so would immediately cause the city to crumble, destabilizing the entire structure of the planes (though it might have been implied that Sigil's destruction would be the result of the fallout from her fighting Vecna). So she should be an elder god at the very least.

 

[Upper_Krust]

I think I always just had her pegged at First One (Aditi at least). Hypothetically the Lady of Pain may just be the Avatar of Aditi...?

Her bio is vague enough that she is difficult to pin down I suppose. As Alzrius says, all we do know is that she is more powerful than a Greater God while within Sigil.

Might be cool for some deity to paralyze her and then use her as a weapon.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I realize The Lady of Pain is a sacred cow for some people, but she deserves to be statted up and fleshed out Immortal's Handbook style.

It's not that she is a sacred cow, it's that it seems like fundamentally missing the point about (from a Doylist perspective) what she is and why she exists. D&D, early on, leaned heavily (much to Rob K's and EGG's frustration, it seems) into D&D gawds being things you could fight using the combat rules, and who could fight each other and so on (and do fight each other, and vie for power, etc., often leaving entire prime material planes devastated or irreparably altered in their wake). This becomes a tragedy of the commons situation with someplace like Sigil, as if it ends up being the battleground for vying deific superpowers, it makes it hard for it to be anything else. Thus is introduced a character outside of those deific battles, of which we know nothing else, and who does nothing but strongly (and enforceably, preferably through unknown means) saying, 'not here.' She exists so that the part of the game focusing on gawds and elder demons (and maybe the PCs) fighting each other and taking over each others domains and such don't force out people wanting stories about rival philosophical factions in neighboring coffee shops in Sigil getting into fistfights from mattering (because even if they don't matter anywhere else in the game, they matter here).

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey there Willie the Duck!

It's not that she is a sacred cow, it's that it seems like fundamentally missing the point about (from a Doylist perspective) what she is and why she exists. D&D, early on, leaned heavily (much to Rob K's and EGG's frustration, it seems) into D&D gawds being things you could fight using the combat rules, and who could fight each other and so on (and do fight each other, and vie for power, etc., often leaving entire prime material planes devastated or irreparably altered in their wake).

Yes those great minds were inspired by tales of myth and legend where mortals fought gods and gods fought other gods...and monsters.

This becomes a tragedy of the commons situation with someplace like Sigil, as if it ends up being the battleground for vying deific superpowers, it makes it hard for it to be anything else.

Ironically Sigil, based upon ideas from AD&D Manual of the Planes' Concordant Opposition had its own built in answer to this whereupon even divine power became nullified the closer you came to the epicentre of the plane. Meaning of all the places within the universe this became the safest for Dealings & Discourse.

Thus is introduced a character outside of those deific battles, of which we know nothing else, and who does nothing but strongly (and enforceably, preferably through unknown means) saying, 'not here.' She exists so that the part of the game focusing on gawds and elder demons (and maybe the PCs) fighting each other and taking over each others domains and such don't force out people wanting stories about rival philosophical factions in neighboring coffee shops in Sigil getting into fistfights from mattering (because even if they don't matter anywhere else in the game, they matter here).

None of that precludes her from having in-game stats for those crazy enough to venture into the waters of epic and immortal D&D gaming.

If players only ever play Levels 1-8 (83% of players) then having stats for the Tarrasque is irrelevant. Its a force of nature you read tales about in books - for those players it doesn't need stats.

If players play to Levels 1-20 then having stats for the Lady of Pain are irrelevant, but the Tarrasque becomes relevant for the 2% of gamers who play epic tier.

If players go beyond Level 20 then having stats for ANYTHING is fair game.

 

[Alzrius]

D&D, early on, leaned heavily (much to Rob K's and EGG's frustration, it seems) into D&D gawds being things you could fight using the combat rules, and who could fight each other and so on (and do fight each other, and vie for power, etc., often leaving entire prime material planes devastated or irreparably altered in their wake).

There's a bit more nuance to it, at least as I've given to understand. It's true that there were gods in some of those early games who directly expressed themselves via the game rules (e.g. in his recently-released retrospective The Return of Robilar, Rob Kuntz recounts accidentally releasing Hextor from his prison beneath Castle Greyhawk, and almost being slaughtered by him), but I'm not sure you could say they "leaned heavily" on that.

For instance, the original Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes had stats for deities explicitly to denote what the designers thought was the top of the game's power-scale, as an explicit rebuke to power-gamers with levels in the hundreds or thousands. That's not frustration with gods being portrayed under the game rules, but rather frustration for people ignoring the game's conventions and inspirations in favor of blatant power-fantasies.

 

[dave2008]

In my current version of the Lady of Pain I've made her a primordial. Additionally, Sigil, The Spire, and the Outlands are any elaborate array design to contain her. She has ultimate authority in Sigil, but it is her cage. Without it she would be free, but also significantly less powerful.

 

[FleshEatingBlackFlutterby]

In my current version of the Lady of Pain I've made her a primordial. Additionally, Sigil, The Spire, and the Outlands are any elaborate array design to contain her. She has ultimate authority in Sigil, but it is her cage. Without it she would be free, but also significantly less powerful.

I always felt that The Cage was both her Godly Realm and her prison. A sort of self-imposed exile for the sake of the Multiverse.

Perhaps she is even The Warden and The Cage holds something far worse than her. The writers do talk about how Sigil's depths are unknown areas and that entire sections of Sigil from ancient times are buried deep beneath the streets and forgotten.

The consquences of "liberating" her would probably be apocalyptic.

There is even talk about a time in prehistory when The Lady didn't even exist in Sigil and that she was one day just there.

 

[Bootlebat]

In the Ascension book the "known old ones" chart lists the old one for Concordance (Outlands) as "Lady Fate." I always assumed that WAS the Lady Of Pain, just with a different name since she's copyrighted. Have I been wrong all these years?