D&D Armageddon - Blood Wars End, Sigil Falls to Seige

[Calico_Jack73]

However, in this cosmology, the Lady of Pain is one of the Elder Gods, as is the overgod that created my campaign world.

Sounds good and explains why her will overrules that of the gods. As one of the "Elder" or Prime gods then she has a stake in the design of the universe. Kinda like in the movie "Dogma" the Universe exists because the will of the Lady is indomitable. Maybe she was the Prime god of Balance while Asmodeus (his real form, not his Avatar) was the Prime Evil. If you go with the idea that in the beginning all was Chaos then only Elder Gods of Law would be able to fashion reality out of the Chaos. Hmmm... now I just need to figure out who I'd make the Prime Good being and I'll have a Cosmology.

 

[Orius]

Sounds good and explains why her will overrules that of the gods. As one of the "Elder" or Prime gods then she has a stake in the design of the universe. Kinda like in the movie "Dogma" the Universe exists because the will of the Lady is indomitable. Maybe she was the Prime god of Balance while Asmodeus (his real form, not his Avatar) was the Prime Evil. If you go with the idea that in the beginning all was Chaos then only Elder Gods of Law would be able to fashion reality out of the Chaos. Hmmm... now I just need to figure out who I'd make the Prime Good being and I'll have a Cosmology.

Sort of. Here's the section from my campaign history that applies:

In the furthest and most distant past are the beginnings of Arropia. It was the time of the Elder Gods, deities wholly alien to the younger races. It was a time before the forces of good and evil and law and chaos battled across the universe. These gods created Arropia, and it was a time of darkness as strange races lived and fought over the world's surface. Eventually, new beings arose and fought the elder races and gods. Most of the elder beings were destroyed, but others were banished to the darknesses above and below.

Anyway, I never defined how many Elder Gods there were originally, or really what their purposes (if any) were. this gives me the opportunity to create whatever I want. There are only 3 of them that are actually named: the Ouroboris, the Lady, and Arropis (the creator of the campaign world). The Ouroboris was the most powerful of them all, but its power was fragmented among five different beings. I don't know exactly what role the Lady has in my cosmology. I really included her because I started out with using the Wheel cosmology, and I decided her power to shut gods and other very powerful being out of Sigil comes from the fact that she is greater than and predates the gods.

Basically, the Elder Gods is sort of an excuse to cram Cthulhu like stuff in my campaign, or stuff like the Elder Elemental god, or whatever else like that I care to put in. The "darkness below" is the Underdark, the reference is specifially meant to be races like the illithids and kuo-toa which are the among the eldest races on my world. The "darkness above" probably refers to something like the Far Realm.

 

[Chosen01]

BUMP! I've been following this thread and getting ideas for my own D&D Armageddon so I hope it continues...

PS: Paka, since you've already gone out of the box it might interest you to check out the following fan made character write-up of various archfiends - Link1 - Link2.

 

[Chosen01]

I don't mean to resurrect this dead thread but I just thought those interested in a D&D armageddon might also want to check this out - Post-Sigil Planescape.

 

[Paka]

I don't mean to resurrect this dead thread but I just thought those interested in a D&D armageddon might also want to check this out - Post-Sigil Planescape.

Thanks for the link. The guy who wrote this, Zak and I are old buddies. Nice.

I was going to give this thread a bump when I had done some work on a Prestige Class or two. No worries.

 

[Greybar]

Now, of course the various fiends will never be able to agree on the long term ownership of each plane. Each will want more than his rival. The planes largely dominated but for rebellious resistance, the old power games return. Soon fiend fights fiend again, and the rebels find that if they are willing to compromise their principles they can more easily turn one against another.

The cycle slowly returns again...

 

[Chosen01]

Here's some more cool ideas for a D&D Armageddon

*imagines the outer planes scattered in malformed hunks of their former selves, floating within an overlaying void of Astral scattered with chunks of godisles, random souls and petitioners drawing to the disrupting plane chunks and merging with them, everything healing and reforming at an abysmally slow rate and not reforming in the exact same way, and in the center of it all, the Astral barrier of Sigil burning and untouched amid it all*

*slow evil grin* The idea has some fun promise if you pull it off in a suitable dramatic fashion.

I can see the powers destroyed and mortal souls being fished from the Astral by fiends, celestials, Slaadi and Modrons to merge with and repair their respective planes, or propagate their kind in some cases. You'd have open warfare among the exemplars in a fashion to make the Blood War pale in comparison since survival and dominance of their alignment hangs in the balance.

I can imagine then the progenitor races of the upper planes appearing for the first time and taking an active hand (if they ever existed), the Baernaloths unlocking the seal at the bottom of Ghoresh Chasm in the Waste for whatever lies sealed beneath, the Ancient Baatorians rising from their slumber to retake their shattered plane from the Baatezu who suddenly might find themselves allied with Celestia, the Tanar'ri laying waste to Ysgard and clashing with the armies of Arborea.

We might see the final obliteration of the formians on Mechanus by the suddenly expansionist armies of The One and the Prime. Wouldn't that be a sight, expansionist modrons seeking to reorder the reforming outer planes in perfect order and law.

There's some sweet ideas you could play with here...

As for a reality underying the planes, think of seeds of unfathomable Hyperreality suddenly germinating from their various spots across the planes.

An alternate idea:
You also might have the Ethereal doing ... 'something' ... and strands of the Ethereal deep boiling and surging out into the upper planes by way of Sigil and something 'else' being formed to take the place of the normal outer planes.

For those of you who have the book on the inner planes (particularly the 'evolution' entry), or are otherwise aware that the prime and the outer planes are increasingly invading the once-pure inner planes, or for anyone otherwise interested... I've been thinking.

What if the inner planes.. whether on their own, or by way of the forces that dwell there... or perhaps some effort from the rilmani, or any number of other possibilities.. started to 'strike back'.

Fire or Water, Positive or Negative, Para or Quasi, the elemental planes have been tainted too much, for too long. The genies were bad enough, so ancient that they have become natives, but the increasing invasions of celestials, fiends, and planars, and even the occassional prime, are taking hold of parts of the source of all, and spreading like viruses. A floating isle on the plane of air here, a citidel amidst ash there, and it's all becoming far too... organic.

Well, the inner planes can play hard ball too.

Elemental beings, whether pure, or formed like their foes (human-shaped, monster-shaped, etc), increase in numbers.

They gather. They plot. They plan.

A few small floating islands are found covered in ice, beneath which lies only ashes...

One-way portals are opened on the prime, forming vast, saline lakes and terrible volcanoes errupt from whence a civlization had arrisen.

Elemental gate towns are formed on the outlands devoted to the elements, forming a curious symmetry, with water as far from air as earth is from fire, etc etc etc.

Powerful elementals make their way to the outer planes, taking residence in the waters of oceanus, the furnaces of Gehenna, and the skies of the beastlands

Long ago, or so some sages say, the inner planes threw off the corrupted mire that became the prime, the ethereal a vapor trail left after so great an upheaval... the maggots did rise from this filth, and grow and evolve, sending their hopes and dreams to form the astral and the wheel. But the maggots and their dreams dared to seek their source, and trod upon the pure ground they had been so forcefully ejected from. Now, as it did before, the elements shall cleanse themselves, even if they have to consume the rest of the planes to do so.

 

[drnuncheon]

Well, I've already said my bit a number of posts back. But I think the main point that Toras should have stressed is that no invading force, be they demon, devil, Yugoloth, celestial or true deity can enter Sigil without The Lady allowing it. Portal key or not, a portal doesn't open if by The Lady's design or whim it simply doesn't open.

Yes it's one of the hard core points regarding Sigil, but it's one that has to be taken into consideration unless you've got a disgustingly well conceived notion of getting around it, somehow.

Bah. It's a myth. Berks like you have bought into it, and that makes it stronger, but it's still just a myth.

If everything happens by the Lady's will then she never would have needed to destroy Aoskar - he never would have been able to gain any power in Sigil.

If everything happens by the Lady's will then the...can't recall the name of it, the artifact that was going to open up all the gates to the lower planes...that never would have worked.

No - the Lady's like one of those plate-spinners you see in the taverns. It's a balancing act. Every so often the plate falls off and she has to catch it and start it spinning again. But the right nudge, the right push, and it all comes down.

Sigil's so much more interesting that way.

J

 

[Shemeska]

If everything happens by the Lady's will then the...can't recall the name of it, the artifact that was going to open up all the gates to the lower planes...that never would have worked.

*grin* That would be The Shadow Sorcelled Key, supposedly capable of opening up all of the lower planar portals within the (then) Prime Ward of Sigil (now the Lower Ward).

Sadly the artifact is lost or destroyed, and aside from legends that sprang up in the aftermath of the Clueless Rebellion there's no evidence to suggest that it ever existed.

... however... that hasn't stopped me from using it in my own campaign, and I've not actually restricted it to just lower planar portals or even portals in that one ward. It functions something like a universal portal key, but the recovery of it and having it brought back into Sigil set off a Cagequake something fierce as presumably The Lady was not pleased at this act. In fact the three occasions that the key has been used it triggered a ward specific Cagequake. Those using the key recalled the person holding it back from Sigil and gave them a lesson in misuse of power. They sent them back into Sigil missing an arm and an eye (that took nearly a month to regenerate).

I've also given the key a decent background IMC, such as who made it, why, etc:

A bit of fluff text from that:

“It was the tool of our rebellion. Packed like sheep, penned, sequestered and oppressed, it was given to us unasked. But we took it anyways. ‘If you have but the will to use it’ we were told, and greedily, headstrong and filled with righteous zeal we took it. ‘The choice is yours, do as thou wilt.’ Well, some gifts are best never taken!! The prime ward was razed! Fiends roamed the streets, slaughtering each other and any others they found. Many of our own died even as the hated Sodkillers and the Incanterium battled the swelling darkness we had unleashed upon the City and were slaughtered. It was ended only by the actions of Her Serenity… and our gift was taken back from our hands by he who granted it to us. As before, so again.”

“The unity of rings fulfilled. From prime to prime it was a tool of death. A tool of chaos incarnate, a tool of brutal repression. Both extremes personified, reflected only in the hand of the one who had but to accept their gift, and turn it, unlocking the darkness within, and without.”

“Our greed and our hatred prompted us to accept it. A means of salvation or revenge so terrible, but gift or not, ‘the choice was ours’ and we alone are to blame for the path of hells fury it has woven through the eons. The Shadow Sorcelled Key is a gift, it always is, and a tool, but one that uses the gifted…”

 

[Shemeska]

Here's some more cool ideas for a D&D Armageddon

Well I guess I should feel honored for you posting up some of my material that I put up on the WotC boards a couple of days ago.

*takes a bow*

(Shemeska here, Shemeska the Marauder there)