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

[Bendris Noulg]

WOTC has infatically stated that the Cosmologies has been, and forever seperated. this news came out before the release of the Forgotten Realms Hardback for 3e. So indeed there has been a divorce of the game worlds. The Gods, Demons and Devils that share names are not one and the same. The are differant.

Not really what I'm asking...

In either of the books, does the history/fluff present the events in DVD as actually happening, or does the material claim to have always been that way?

Reason being that if the current Great Wheel set up is assumed to have never been what is was, then the events in DVD could not possibly have happen because the cosmology no longer supports it. Creating a fictional way of explaining the change seems kinda pointless if the material doesn't acknowledge that a previous condition existed in the first place. It can't be canon if it never actually happened even if the current condition is the same as the result of it occuring.

Ya grok?

Canon on the local level is not very important. You game will run however you expect it to. But adventures written with canon in mind affect products that come out in the future. There is a book comming out called a Players guide to the Planes, and while it doesn't give great detail on Sigil, it does mention it. I'm not sure if it came out here or on the WOTC boards or not, but that information was leaked out by the writers.

If you're saying the new Grayhawk/Great Wheel canon will likely be more relevant to the game than Planescape/Planewalker canon, you are likely right.

BTW, I thought that was GR's book... Or are they simply doing something akin to the planes as well?

I expect that more material will come out in the future that will involve more of the Planescape Game setting, but only after they feel that they can more fully explore the setting in the fashion that they are doing now. (Single hardbacks and the like.)

Speculation, of course, but it does make you wonder sometimes why they bothered giving the "official conversion" licenses. Granted, I hold nothing against the sites, but it seems that WotC tends to throw stuff out to the public involving all these different settings (via Dragon and the occassional paragraph buried in a non-Core book) without any consideration/correlation with those they granted licenses to. I know I'd find that frustrating... Would be hard to be taken seriously when you can wake up one day and find your work being contradicted by the only folks to have more weight on the topic.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Ah, but here is the rub, Dragonlance never fit into the Great Wheel. For that matter the highst level you could get to was 18th level.

As I remember, there was just three planes. (I could be wrong about that.)

You can thank Tracy Hickman for that. He put his foot down and got his way. To this day, I haven't seen anything in Planescape that pulls from Dragonlance.

The closest thing to planar travel mentioned is two DL modules. One mentioned that Lord Soth as a human knight once adventured on the Elemental Plane of Fire. Another mentioned the rules put in place by the DL Gods that will trap people on Krynn who came there from other worlds.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Not really what I'm asking...

In either of the books, does the history/fluff present the events in DVD as actually happening, or does the material claim to have always been that way?

Reason being that if the current Great Wheel set up is assumed to have never been what is was, then the events in DVD could not possibly have happen because the cosmology no longer supports it. Creating a fictional way of explaining the change seems kinda pointless if the material doesn't acknowledge that a previous condition existed in the first place. It can't be canon if it never actually happened even if the current condition is the same as the result of it occuring.

Ya grok?

If you're saying the new Grayhawk/Great Wheel canon will likely be more relevant to the game than Planescape/Planewalker canon, you are likely right.

BTW, I thought that was GR's book... Or are they simply doing something akin to the planes as well?

Speculation, of course, but it does make you wonder sometimes why they bothered giving the "official conversion" licenses. Granted, I hold nothing against the sites, but it seems that WotC tends to throw stuff out to the public involving all these different settings (via Dragon and the occassional paragraph buried in a non-Core book) without any consideration/correlation with those they granted licenses to. I know I'd find that frustrating... Would be hard to be taken seriously when you can wake up one day and find your work being contradicted by the only folks to have more weight on the topic.

Now that is true rules lawyer babble.

The DVD module explained that this was an official change put forward that a DM could use to explain changes in their campaign. This would of course only be necessary if a DM played exactly by official rules where in 2E players could travel between Greyhawk and FR easily and then in 3E they could suddenly do no such thing.

So of course this would only apply in campaigns that started in 2E and continued in 3E your whole arguement about history including or not including this is rather unimportant. The history only need exist in certain campaigns. One example would be a campaign that used all printed material as it was printed.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

The closest thing to planar travel mentioned is two DL modules. One mentioned that Lord Soth as a human knight once adventured on the Elemental Plane of Fire. Another mentioned the rules put in place by the DL Gods that will trap people on Krynn who came there from other worlds.

I do recall the Krynn folks being regarded as Clueless in Planescape...

-Takhisis was Tiamat, and that annoying old dude as Bahumet (sp?).
-They saw all of the lower planes as one plane: "the" Abyss.

I think there was more, but I can't remember.

And, of course, all the while offering the greatest scourge ever to strike at the multiverse: SpellJamming Tinker Gnomes!

 

[Arnwyn]

BTW, I thought that was GR's book...

No.

Or are they simply doing something akin to the planes as well?

Yes.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Now that is true rules lawyer babble.

The DVD module explained that this was an official change put forward that a DM could use to explain changes in their campaign. This would of course only be necessary if a DM played exactly by official rules where in 2E players could travel between Greyhawk and FR easily and then in 3E they could suddenly do no such thing.

So its "optional canon"? That's funny.

So of course this would only apply in campaigns that started in 2E and continued in 3E your whole arguement about history including or not including this is rather unimportant.

No, it's not... If the history presented does not acknowledge that it happened, than how can it be said that it did indeed happen? At most, they've stripped the Great Wheel of it's non-GH elements, provided FR with its own layout, and devised a means of explaining it for folks that wanted to transition to the new layouts from the old.

That's a far cry from canon for Planescape itself.

The history only need exist in certain campaigns. One example would be a campaign that used all printed material as it was printed.

This is exactly why it isn't canon: It is not part of the common basis that the cannonized rules are supposed to represent. In this case, it contradicts from the canon of the planes (as described in 3E) as well as deviates from the continuation of Planescape (as presented by Planewalker). Rather, it's an "optional canon" device that a GM *might* know about (if he's been playing that long or has an interest in retro material) and thus *might* use *if* he was using Planescape and wants to transition to GH/Great Wheel in 3E.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

No.

Yes.

Thanks!

 

[Malakar]

they are

So how do you explain the deity stats in Deities and Demigods?

But: no Lady of Pain in that book. Although if WotC would redo Planescape, I'd bet some designer would give her stats

They are. It is called planewalker at www.planewalker.com The writers there are fully cannon with WOTC's approval.

 

[Shemeska]

Two things:

First of all I wouldn't use Aoskar as an example of a deity getting into Sigil, loophole or otherwise. All that's ever been published is that Aoskar at one point claimed a plurality of worshippers in Sigil (mix of casual and devoted), became identified with using portals in and out of Sigil to the point where people said prayers to him when using them, and that while greedy to take Sigil for himself he stepped over line. People began to rever The Lady of Pain as an aspect of Aoskar and one of The Lady's dabus, Fell, donned the robes of a high priest and proxy of Aoskar.

When that happened Aoskar died. No long, drawn out battle, he simply died in a single moment that obliterated a district of the city itself (Shattered temple district) and razed his temple to the ground. The only survivor was Fell who lives to this day out of either mercy or torment, cast out of his place as one of the Dabus. He remains faithful to his dead patron god. Aoskar's corpse was found floating petrified in the Astral pierced through with massive, familiar shaped blades.

Never a mention of if Aoskar was inside Sigil or not at the moment he died. Perhaps he was purposefully allowed in to trap and slay him, or perhaps he managed to insinuate himself inside Sigil just enough to make him dangerous to Her Serenity, but also allow Her to destroy him with a glance and a shadow. It however is suggestive that The Lady in some rare circumstances may be able to (or simply only then choose to) extend Her power outside of The City of Doors. It's a lingering and haunting question.

Take with this that Factol Skall of the Dustmen may have been outside Sigil on the Negative Energy plane when he was mazed. Never clarified if he was or wasn't, but it's circumstantial evidence. Keep in mind we already know she can spin off portions of Sigil back on themselves within the Deep Ethereal to form mazes. The Deep Ethereal, or even the ethereal plane as a whole doesn't overlap Sigil or the outer planes at all, The Lady is somehow acting outside of the city in a way in those cases. Also She can already form portals from any bound space in Sigil to quite literally any bound space on the planes at large. It's not too terribly stretching to perhaps assume She might be able to do more. Not that there would ever be more than 2 known examples of such ever in 10k years at least, but it's suggestive with a hill of circumstance that She can if needed.


2nd point: As far as Dragonlance and Planescape. Folks from Krynn are generally regarded as the stereotypical 'clueless' primes. However I personally don't care to use much DL stuff in Planescape because Weiss and Hickman never intended for Dragonlance to be set in the same multiverse as the other TSR settings, it get forced upon them and I have a wish to respect that if I can in some ways. Of course it's unavoidable sometimes to make reference to Krynn.

 

[the Jester]

Well, first off, I've never played or bought any PS stuff at all. I just want to address the issue of 'canon.'

If a module was published by tsr/wotc, it is canon.

You may not like it, you may choose not to use it, but to say it isn't canon is simply wrong.

That's all. Carry on with your argument.