DMG2 blurb on Amazon. Attention Planescape fans!

[doctorhook]

Don't remember a single thing about Union, never read the details. But I'm a bit pissed about Sigil: they already detailed it in the Manual of the Planes, why again? I would rather have two locations, one in Feywild and one in Shadowfell, or maybe some Astral Dominion.
Speaking of them, another option for DMG3 could easily be Hestavar.
Aww and what about Arvandor?? It could make a veeery good Paragon and/or Epic starting point. It's a Feywild into the Feywild (well, out of, but connected), and it screams out for high fantasy things, like FR Evermeet or the classic Avalon.

Those are all dandy locations, which I hope they eventually do give this level of attention! (Personally, I would like to see Hestavar more than Sigil. Reading about it made me want to see a CG movie set there!)

If you have a look at the Sigil description in the MotP, and then compare it to the Fallcrest description in the DMG, you'll realize there's no contest: The description in MotP is a mere overview, a travel brochure for Sigil, compared to the whole chapter the tiny town of Fallcrest got in DMG. DMG2 is promising to bring that level of detail to the 4E version of D&D's most famous planar city.

 

[avin]

Sigil for Paragon and City of Brass for Heroic? Somebody at Wotc surely HATES Planescape and Loves boring CoB...

 

[doctorhook]

Sigil for Paragon and City of Brass for Heroic? Somebody at Wotc surely HATES Planescape and Loves boring CoB...

(Psst... did you mean Epic? )

BTW, what's "CoB"?

 

[avin]

City of Brass...

Yeah, I meant Epic...

Franky, maybe there's something wrong with the way I think but Cob for Epic instead of Sigil doesn't make sense in my head.

 

[Shemeska]

I agree completely. But to me, that's "execution," not "concept." Because...

I agree that epic characters should be among the most powerful, and that the notion of a city that's entirely epic is silly.

But I think there's a middle ground. I think it does an epic party good if there are at least some other powerful individuals of equivalent might. Otherwise, the epic PCs are doing everything important.

Hence my vote for the City of Brass. It's not a city full of epic creatures, but it's ruled by creatures who are, on average, the equivalent of epic, and it's visited by other epic-level explorers. And unlike Sigil, it's also got some epic-level challenges built into its very nature and environment.

Now, all that being said, I'd love for DMG3--assuming it is epic-focused, which we're all assuming but nobody has confirmed --to actually talk about this sort of thing. I'd love to see advice for DMs on making the epic tier more than just the paragon tier with bigger numbers. And I think a "home-base" setting designed around epic levels would be a good way to illustrate some of that.

It was a failure in execution, but a failure on a lesser lever for not having a concept that really made it stand out from other planar cities. It truly came off as trying to be Sigil, without being Sigil, but being better and EPIC.

Union suffered by comparison to Sigil. Sigil connected everywhere, had the factions, representatives of planar powers, many of the most wealthy individuals across the planes living there, and an enigmatic entity that prevented the city from becoming the overt battleground of gods and fiendish armies. Union pretty much had an epic level plastic clown holding up its hand and the sign "You must be 21st level or higher to ride this epic ride".

Union tried to one up every other planar city out there, and it really suffered by comparison to such places as Sigil, the City of Brass, Grenpoli, Dis, Tradegate, Tu'narath, and others. And it didn't have the presence of any of the major groups or persons that likewise gave those cities some stability and reason for continued existance. Union had mercanes, and a bunch of groups with zero prior history that were presented as suddenly being the bestest and better than anything else ever and EPIC! Doesn't come off well.

Union could be salvaged, but it would need to really take an author looking at it and addressing it on a core level to find a niche that didn't involve the word "Epic" at any point. They'd need to make it fit rationally into the fabric of the planes and prior history of the planes (which 3.x Union made no attempt to do) and they'd need some reason for continued defense beyond mercanes and a sense of 'if we build a demiplane and only let in Epic heroes which sure will flock to us, those Epic heroes will defend us from the fiendish armies that will otherwise turn us the place into a smoking wasteland if the demiplane truly had enough unique traits to attract those Epic people in the first place."

Several years back I speculated with Rip and some others on the WotC boards about how to save the place (the thread since scrubbed in one of the crashes over there, or the Gleemax era forum deletions and mass merges). Perhaps the demiplane existed prior to the mercane's finding it and claiming it as their own creation, and something else really pulls the strings, perhaps like a twist on Neth or Nimicri. Perhaps the mercane serve as the intermediaries for a cabal of draconic sorcerers or a proxy of a draconic deity of wealth. Etc.

Suffice to say, Union needed a revamp if it wanted to shed the disdain it generally received when it came out.

 

[Shemeska]

Sigil does not Planescape make.

Very true. The design scheme for the planes is 4e is radically different from that of Planescape. The inclusion of Sigil is interesting, but it doesn't make it Planescape.

And turning Sigil into Union lite... meh.

I'll reserve judgement till the book is out. They didn't mess anything up in the MotP w/ respect to Sigil (thank you Michelle Carter for having a hand in its content). Admittedly, it's subtlely warped in some ways by being part of the 4e cosmology that changes many things, changes the atmosphere of the planes, and eliminates a few bedrock concepts and tropes. It isn't the same City of Doors - more like a "what if alternate thingy" comic book version of Sigil that isn't part of the mainline coverage of the setting.

Once it's out, I'll read it in the store and give my opinion on the place - either praise or mockery depending on if one or the other or both are deserved. They did some decent homework for the MotP, so I doubt it'll see me raking them over the coals for anything. Probably won't be to my tastes, and I still don't have a desire to run a planar campaign in the 4e planes by any means, but probably won't be anything like the (IMO) failures of the 3.x Planar Handbook or BoED (though there's crossover with the 4e design team there admittedly).

 

[doctorhook]

City of Brass...

Yeah, I meant Epic...

Franky, maybe there's something wrong with the way I think but Cob for Epic instead of Sigil doesn't make sense in my head.

Speaking as a relative "planar-nub", I think I can see good cases being made for both cities at both tiers. (For example, listening to Shemeska talk about Sigil always makes it seem like a place with Epic potential.)

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Speaking as a relative "planar-nub", I think I can see good cases being made for both cities at both tiers. (For example, listening to Shemeska talk about Sigil always makes it seem like a place with Epic potential.)

I would say Sigil works well as Paragon in that, while yes there is some pretty incredible stuff/beings in Sigil that would easily be Epic. There is also lonely Humans awestruck by its strangeness, etc (thus why called Clueless). Now to not become completely overwhelmed/screwed over by some of the less favourable elements of Sigil being Paragon-level is a reasonable level I think for PCs.

So while Sigil can certainly be Epic, it is a nice launching point/continuing influence on the PCs as they go up in levels and even into Epic. It also has a legacy so to speak already as a "home base" for planar campaigns.

 

[FourthBear]

Sigil does not Planescape make.

And turning Sigil into Union lite... meh.

I don't see any indication that Sigil will be turned into Union lite. As others' have noted, Union was a failure because of a lack of character and color, as well as several unwise design decisions (such as the infamous Epic Town Guards).

The 4e writers have already published on Sigil in the Manual of the Planes, with no significant signs of Union-ization. The Sigil described in that book appears to match closely to that found in its last pre-4e canonical appearance. I can't find any mentions of Paragon Sigil Sentinels or the Lady of Pain being overthrown by a council of interplanar merchants.

 

[Shroomy]

The DMG2 sounds interesting, I can't see how 10-20 page spread on Sigil can be bad. That said, of all the major 4e planar metropoli described in the MotP, I think that Gloomwrought is the most interesting. Hopefully, we'll get something on that soon.