[Planescape] Questions about Sigil

[Ripzerai]

Can you point me to one?

The one you put above, for example, from page 7 of "A Player's Guide to the Planes." Sigil's up in the white space, on the paper rather than the sky. Or two pages earlier, on page 5, where Sigil's again shown outside the circle rather than within it.

Or the poster map of the multiverse, where you can't see Sigil at all.

Or pretty much every picture of the Spire. Either Sigil's off in the margins, or it's not there at all, or there's an obvious place where the Spire's been truncated for the sake of the illustration (like in the poster map of the Outlands). If the Spire's really a spire, it should taper to a point on the top - yet we hardly ever see that, because it's cut off. Because it's infinite, and it doesn't have a top that anyone'll ever see in a literal illustration.

Now, as I said, I love the idea that the Spire's top is infinitely-high-yet-visible. The theory as I see it is that "objects" and "places" in the Outer Planes are really symbols, ideas, and there is no literal space or time.

But that's not official.

If Sigil can't be seen atop the Spire, the Spire is infinitely tall, and no one can see the Spire from Sigil, then why would it be historically written as proof that Sigil is in the center of the Outlands directly above the Spire? How would anyone know that?

They can't.

Even if Sigil's visible, they can't know for sure that the thing floating above the Spire is Sigil. It's just something that people believe.

 

[Metus]

Alright, so I was reading this thread and I became confused about one thing.

From the descriptions on here, I envisioned that you could walk to the edge of Sigil, the edge of the ring, and look down from there. I was going to ask what happens if you fall off. Then, someone mentioned that Sigil is infinitely large, which I'm briefly familiar with due to Manual of the Planes.

So what happens if you walk in a direction towards one of Sigil's "edges"? Infinitely large and all that, but what if you walked for years? Would you... what? Be teleported back into the city? If it's infinite, would you just walk into deserted areas? I'm really confused here.

 

[Ambrus]

Or pretty much every picture of the Spire. Either Sigil's off in the margins, or it's not there at all, or there's an obvious place where the Spire's been truncated for the sake of the illustration (like in the poster map of the Outlands).

I'm not following you. Three of the four images you mentioned all depict Sigil floating above the Spire, and you point to them as proof that Sigil is pretty much never depicted as floating above the spire.

Even if Sigil's visible, they can't know for sure that the thing floating above the Spire is Sigil. It's just something that people believe.

It's true that people couldn't know for sure if the two are related, but it's precisely because a torus is visible floating above the spire that they assume that one is the other. Like Oryan77 said, if people couldn't see a torus floating above the spire then there'd be no reason at all for people to assume Sigil was floating up there. They wouldn't have reason to associate Sigil with the Outlands or Outer Planes at all. It'd be easier to assume that Sigil was a demiplane floating in the ethereal, or an astral island or some other type of unique finite plane.

So what happens if you walk in a direction towards one of Sigil's "edges"? Infinitely large and all that, but what if you walked for years? Would you... what? Be teleported back into the city? If it's infinite, would you just walk into deserted areas? I'm really confused here.

I'm afraid you got caught up in some confusing conjecture. From the inside of Sigil, the city has a measurable and traversible size; approximately 20 miles in circumference and 5 miles in diameter. Residents in the city can walk wherever they want within the city without being teleported around or anything like that. You can see the edge of the city and walk to it just as you could in the real world; it's never more than a few miles away. When you arrive at the edge you'd end up facing a solid wall of buildings without windows facing the outer edge (it makes people uncomfortable to have a view of nothing outside). You could climb up to the roof of any of those buildings and you'd be confronted with that same disturbing view; nothing. No clouds, no sky, just a featureless void. If you stepped out into that void you'd disappear and likely never be heard from again. People have been known to step off into the void, but there are no credible accounts of anyone ever making it back.

 

[Imaro]

Planescape was so friggin cool. I'm trying to set up a Castles and Crusades campaign based in Sigil. This is the setting for me that truly opened my eyes up to what D&D could be. To bad they chose to go with Eberron over revitalizing Planescape. IMHO this was the setting that embodied your imagination being the true limit of your adventures. It catered to any style(from hack n slash to belief and shaping the universe) you wanted to play.

Some claim it had a sci-fi aesthetic, but I never got that, and the cant(when used like real slang) never bothered me and was kinda cool. Now Eberron with its lightning trains, magical "grafts, clockwork machines, etc. has a much more sci-fi aesthetic(not saying it's bad, because I think it fits the pulp feel of the setting). Anyway, just wanted to throw some love out there for my favorite setting.

 

[Ambrus]

This is the setting for me that truly opened my eyes up to what D&D could be. IMHO this was the setting that embodied your imagination being the true limit of your adventures. It catered to any style(from hack n slash to belief and shaping the universe) you wanted to play.

QFT.

 

[Ripzerai]

Three of the four images you mentioned all depict Sigil floating above the Spire, and you point to them as proof that Sigil is pretty much never depicted as floating above the spire.

No, I pointed to them as evidence that Sigil can't be seen from the Outlands. That's not the same thing at all as it not being depicted above the Spire. Sigil is depicted as floating above the Spire because that's where it is, officially. That doesn't mean someone standing in the Outlands can see it there.

There are visual tricks in each of these pictures designed to convey to the reader that they're not supposed to be viewed as "photographic" images of what a PC would see.

Really, an idea like "infinity that you can see the end of" is a pretty important concept, and you'd think it would have been mentioned at least once. It wasn't.

They wouldn't have reason to associate Sigil with the Outlands or Outer Planes at all.

That's not exactly true. In 2nd edition, magic item bonuses made it pretty clear what plane something was on. There's also the celestial aetheroscope, an instrument that can be used to triangulate the position of the planes around you (among other useful things).

 

[Oryan77]

That doesn't mean someone standing in the Outlands can see it there.

Can you point me to a description that specifically says Sigil can't be seen from the Outlands? I would like to see something concrete, not something that I need to interpret as Sigil not being seen from the Outlands.

I mean, that's a pretty easy bit of info to mention in an official book without being vague about it. There's no reason a writer would need to be vague about that. I don't remember reading anything that just told me, "Sigil can't be seen from anywhere on the Outlands".

Yet, there's many images showing Sigil above the Outlands. I can find plenty of references in both 2e and 3.5 that says Sigil is in the center of the Outlands directly above the Spire. I would think that those references are meant to tell us that it can be seen, since that's where people believe it to be, it's illustrated that way, and there is no text that says it can't be seen (that I know of). To me, those points make it pretty obvious that Sigil can be seen and it doesn't need to be pointed out specifically that it can be seen.

I see what you're talking about in regards to the illustrations and white space, but I think that's an overanalyzation of an illustrators work of art. That's kinda stretching it to prove a point

I'm an artist myself, everything from fine art to 3d animation. Personally, I believe the illustrator painted those images that way so Sigil will stand out more in the picture and won't be lost behind clouds or saturated by atmosphere colors. To make something stand out, you can put negative space around it. I think that's what's going on in the pictures rather than just cropping Sigil in there to represent it's placement in the plane.

It's an interesting thing you brought up though. I know you prefer to see Sigil like we do and you're just saying the books don't say you can. But I think your gut preference is correct and your excellent reading comprehension skills are getting in your way

That's not exactly true. In 2nd edition, magic item bonuses made it pretty clear what plane something was on. There's also the celestial aetheroscope, an instrument that can be used to triangulate the position of the planes around you (among other useful things).

The books also say that magic stops working the closer you get to the spire. We all agree that Sigil is in the center of the Outlands, but magic doesn't stop working in Sigil like it does at the Spire. Therefore, if you can't see Sigil from the Outlands, but most magic works in Sigil, then I don't think magic item bonuses would be enough to determine where Sigil is because the whole magical alterations are skewed already.

The Celestial Aetheroscope will triangulate the planes around you. Sigil isn't a plane, it's a city. I don't think that instrument would tell you what plane Sigil is on, but I don't remember what all functions the aetheroscope can actually perform so maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Ripzerai]

Can you point me to a description that specifically says Sigil can't be seen from the Outlands?

No, I can't, but I can't point you to a description that says it can. I can point you to many descriptions that say the Spire is infinitely tall, and you're free to interpret that as you will.

I would like to see something concrete, not something that I need to interpret as Sigil not being seen from the Outlands.

What is this "need?" I certainly don't feel the need to interpret Sigil that way, and I'm the one defending that interpretation. You need to interpret it the way you feel most comfortable interpreting it.

My issue here is that people are assuming that Sigil's appearance is a given, when in fact it's as much a fan-created idea as anything official. I for one often accept fan-created ideas as more interesting and binding than official ones, anyway.

I don't remember reading anything that just told me, "Sigil can't be seen from anywhere on the Outlands".

Y'know, it'd be pretty easy to say it could be seen from the Outlands, too. That's a pretty vital thing to just leave unmentioned.

This is just something I've noted, rereading Planescape books. I used to take for granted that Sigil was visible from the Outlands, but I noticed that it doesn't actually say that specifically. The closest it gets is in A Player's Primer to the Outlands, page 4, but even then it only says that Sigil is on top of the Spire, not that this is something PCs can see for themselves (although this is a finer point than I remembered it being, and I can see the standard view being a valid conclusion from the text there).

This sort of "Where does it say you can/Where does it say you can't?" argument is ridiculously pointless and inconclusive, though. Neither question has priority over the other.

I'm an artist myself

So am I, actually. I spent seven years in art school, if we're throwing qualifications around, painting/drawing/printmaking/photography/digital. But this sort of playing with the conceptual frame is something that happens in a lot in Planescape - for example, we see the pages "torn aside" in places, with characters peaking in through previous pages.

You're probably right that DiTerlizzi was mostly just trying to get Sigil to stand out against the background, but at the same time, due to this technique, it can't really be seen as a photorealistic representation.

I know you prefer to see Sigil like we do and you're just saying the books don't say you can.

Not in that way - I see the books as offering possibilities, not barking orders.

The books also say that magic stops working the closer you get to the spire. We all agree that Sigil is in the center of the Outlands, but magic doesn't stop working in Sigil like it does at the Spire. Therefore, if you can't see Sigil from the Outlands, but most magic works in Sigil, then I don't think magic item bonuses would be enough to determine where Sigil is.

It determines what plane you're on. If you've got a +1 sword forged in Tradegate, and it's still a +1 sword in Sigil, Sigil must be in the Outlands. It doesn't have to be over the Spire, but we've narrowed down its plane.

The Celestial Etheroscope will triangulate the planes around you. Sigil isn't a plane, it's a city.

Sigil is on a plane, is the point. At least, that's the assumption.

The celestial etheroscope is mainly a tool for divination, predicting events on the various planes. It's my assumption that a device used to study the planes in such detail that it can predict the future would tell you what plane you were on. It might very well even tell you where.

"According to the etheroscope, the city seems to be built on top of the Spire itself, just above its field of anti-magic!"

There are other tools, too - the Sextant of the Planes from the Planar Handbook, and the Dimensional Sextant from the Manual of the Planes, which would both be useful tools in determining local planar relationships. There's also the etheroscopic viewer from Beyond Countless Doorways, which Monte Cook has said was closer to his original idea for the etheroscope (which he didn't think quite worked with the Planescape cosmology, though I disagree).

You could rule that the etheroscope and similar devices can't do that, or even that it just goes haywire if you try to use it that way in Sigil. If you're looking for a reason that planewalkers think Sigil's above the Spire, however, that's a very handy one.

 

[Ambrus]

Rip, if you don't buy that the illustrations are intended to be taken as realistic depictions is there anything that would convince you that the torus is intended to be visible from the Outlands?

 

[ThirdWizard]

At the center of the Outlands, around the base of the spire that supports Sigil, is the ultimate negation of power. No magic or godly faculties of any type work here. This is the ultimate in meeting grounds, for here everyone, no matter how powerful, is rendered equal. It's rarely visited, for only the most pressing business can force the greater gods to parley here. Reaching the center requires a tedious overland journey from the edge of the seventh ring, since all Astral connections are severed inside the radius.

And then there's Sigil. Sitting at the tip of the spire, its a different world. Spells in the Cage work as if a cutter was on the outermost ring of the plane. Some bloods argue its because Sigil's in a separate little demiplane that is linked only geographically to the Outlands. Others say it sits at the confluence of energies from the plane. Most folks don't care. All they know is that magic works in the City of Doors.

I'm on the Sigil can be seen from the Outlands side.