Sigil, planar cities, 4E and older editions

[Fallen Seraph]

Well what sorta trying to say is that what 4e has said so far about Sigil doesn't really mean all that much. Their more statistical, surface value sorta things. That to me isn't what Sigil is about so doesn't play much of a role in my eyes on evaluating Sigil's place in 4e.

What I think one needs to look at is what types of factions, organizations, NPCs, etc. that inhabit 4e's Sigil that is important. While we have gotten some small tastes of that so far, I don't think in my eyes we can truly call Sigil's place till the DMG2 from which we can gleam much more about what life is like in Sigil and then we can determine its place in 4e officially.

 

[Scribble]

That said, I'm trying to look into a different direction, which is what's Sigil's purpose for 4E by the books and also what has changed for the planar cities such as City of Brass since OD&D days.

So far, by what's written, there's no much reason to live there...

One thing I really like about the new cosmology and the "points of light" thing in general is that it's such a clean slate.

There's room for new ideas and new stories, that later on down the line we can all argue about how important it is they don't change.

 

[ppaladin123]

Isn't Sigil going to be detailed more fully in the DMGII so that paragon tier characters can use it as a base of operations? My guess is that it will become a place of greater prominence and importance in 4e cosmology after that write-up.

 

[avin]

Isn't Sigil going to be detailed more fully in the DMGII so that paragon tier characters can use it as a base of operations? My guess is that it will become a place of greater prominence and importance in 4e cosmology after that write-up.

Maybe, but then there will be DMGIII and Sigil's gonna be left aside for the epic tier base of operations?

One thing I really like about the new cosmology and the "points of light" thing in general is that it's such a clean slate.

There's room for new ideas and new stories, that later on down the line we can all argue about how important it is they don't change.

I think this is not exactly what I'm thinking. I'm talking about facts listed on the books that made Sigil kinda obsolete or unnatractive, at least until DMGII as Ppaladin123 said.

The cities I have mentioned aren't all that clean slate anymore. There's no room for the biggest population, best trade hub, easier portals, cosmopolitan city, etc. It's done.

Being a 4E DM and sort of defender I feel comfortable saying that the "clean slate" argument is a bit of an excuse for the lack of fluff on some books (not MotP case, fluff is good).

 

[FourthBear]

Isn't the fact that Sigil is a fascinating and mysterious city, filled with portals leading to and from endless places in the cosmos, populated by interesting NPCs and factions enough to justify its use in any campaign? Do we really need to come up with some special hook, like "Biggest City", "Most Cosmopolitan" or "Oldest City"? Can't the hook be: "Most Interesting City" or "City with the Most Fascinating NPCs"?

It's already got a pretty darn unique place in the 4e cosmos. It's the City of Door, an enclosed demiplane with portals leading all over creation, one with no traditional walls or borders to be invaded from, one with few natural resources and no clear natives. It has no clear origin and the authority is confusing, but powerful. The portals within Sigil are numerous, but often baffling. While these planar doorways may be frustrating to traditional travel, they promise access to areas unknown and perhaps unreachable by any other means.

Both Hestavar and the City of Brass have strong, central authorities that may discourage many creatures/NPCs from wishing to settle there. The same works in reverse: I can see many prefer to live in Hestavar because of the odd quasi-government in Sigil.

 

[avin]

Isn't the fact that Sigil is a fascinating and mysterious city, filled with portals leading to and from endless places in the cosmos, populated by interesting NPCs and factions enough to justify its use in any campaign? Do we really need to come up with some special hook, like "Biggest City", "Most Cosmopolitan" or "Oldest City"? Can't the hook be: "Most Interesting City" or "City with the Most Fascinating NPCs"?

Hello Fourthbear, maybe I wasn't clear enough.

On my games Sigil will always be the coolest place in universe. But a person living in that multiverse hardly would choose it because of the "fascinating npcs".

Things such as "biggest", "most beautiful" are things that attract people in general and 4E written text has no much attractives.

Thinking what Sigil should be is easy... I'm trying to think outside the books for what would hook people to Sigil and so far, nope, maybe in DMGII...

 

[Irda Ranger]

As I thought a little about this yesterday, two things settled in my mind:

1. Sigil is definitely the Casablanca of the Multiverse. There are several establishments much like Rick's (yet even more so), and these establishments would be hard pressed to do business in their preferred manner under the authority of the Efreeti (too militant) or Erathis (too civilized).

2. The food supply situation in the planar cities really bothers me.

I realize I give this more thought than most, but when doing world design I think about food, economics, logistics, water supplies, etc. That's just how I'm wired.

And Sigil has no good way of reliably bringing in food. Or growing food locally. With the gateways changing all the time they can't get to a regular market, or get to markets during the right seasons. Why would farmers bring produce to a time and place when there's only a 10% chance of a buyer being there? It really isn't feasible to supply Sigil with food. Non-perishable supplies like building stone, tools and weapons can handle being cut off for a few weeks or months, but what kind of food stores does the city have? 250,000 people eat a lot of food.

Waste is also a problem. 250,000 beings (some of them size Large) eating all that food produce a lot of poop. Where does it go? Maybe there are mulch caverns beneath the city? I can't (or refuse to) imagine the smell.

Water is much less of a problem because if you imagine a couple super-big cisterns buried beneath the city acting as collectors for all the drains and gutters you could have a reasonably sustainable hyrdo-cycle once the water was gated in from some freshwater lake on another plane. You'd need some way to make it potable, but that's manageable. There's probably some helpful gelatinous beasties floating around in the cisterns that eat up all the waste and excrete Evian-quality H20.

Also, Sigil is really sparsely populated. Given the approx diameter and tube-size given on MotP pg. 27, my calculations show that Sigil has an internal surface area of 145.083185 square miles, or 375.763724 km^2. With a population of 250,000, that's 665 people / km^2. By comparison, New York City has 10,452 / km^2 and Mumbai has 22,658 / km^2. (Link) Hardly the teaming metropolis. It sounds more like one of those suburban developments with a 1/8 mile strip of land between Big Box Stores.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I realize I give this more thought than most, but when doing world design I think about food, economics, logistics, water supplies, etc. That's just how I'm wired.

And Sigil has no good way of reliably bringing in food. Or growing food locally. With the gateways changing all the time they can't get to a regular market, or get to markets during the right seasons. Why would farmers bring produce to a time and place when there's only a 10% chance of a buyer being there? It really isn't feasible to supply Sigil with food. Non-perishable supplies like building stone, tools and weapons can handle being cut off for a few weeks or months, but what kind of food stores does the city have? 250,000 people eat a lot of food.

There's many Permanent Portals across Sigil, where many of the significant trade routes are from. Most of the food came from around the Outlands, and planes like Arborea and Bytopia. And with magic around, someone could always try something like a greenhouse.

Waste is also a problem. 250,000 beings (some of them size Large) eating all that food produce a lot of poop. Where does it go? Maybe there are mulch caverns beneath the city? I can't (or refuse to) imagine the smell.

Only the Hive Ward has waste problems, there's some sort of a sewer system with a lot of it going into the Ditch. Sigil's largest body of water, which is quite polluted. The waste itself goes into the Paraelemental Plane of Ooze (in 4e I guess they just dump it into the Elemental Chaos). This is something that the Dabus maintain.

Water is much less of a problem because if you imagine a couple super-big cisterns buried beneath the city acting as collectors for all the drains and gutters you could have a reasonably sustainable hyrdo-cycle once the water was gated in from some freshwater lake on another plane. You'd need some way to make it potable, but that's manageable. There's probably some helpful gelatinous beasties floating around in the cisterns that eat up all the waste and excrete Evian-quality H20.

For the same reason why there's breathable air in Sigil, there is water in Sigil that comes through permanent portals, into a system maintained by the Lady of Pain's servants the Dabus.

 

[underthumb]

Only the Hive Ward has waste problems, there's some sort of a sewer system with a lot of it going into the Ditch. Sigil's largest body of water, which is quite polluted. The waste itself goes into the Paraelemental Plane of Ooze (in 4e I guess they just dump it into the Elemental Chaos). This is something that the Dabus maintain.

Sigil's waste problem is unclear. "In the Cage" specifically states that Sigil has no sewers (p. 7), but elsewhere refers to its sewers (p. 5, 9, 60). Given how many references to Sigil's sewers exist, I would guess that they are indeed there. I think the Ditch is supposed to be connected to the River Styx and the River Oceanus, but not the plane of ooze. At least, that's what I have in my 2E references, it's possible this changed in 3E.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Sigil's waste problem is unclear. "In the Cage" specifically states that Sigil has no sewers (p. 7), but elsewhere refers to its sewers (p. 5, 9, 60). Given how many references to Sigil's sewers exist, I would guess that they are indeed there. I think the Ditch is supposed to be connected to the River Styx and the River Oceanus, but not the plane of ooze. At least, that's what I have in my 2E references, it's possible this changed in 3E.

They specifically mention Ooze as the dumping ground for Sigil's waste, in Inner Planes. And there's a large network of tunnels that only the Dabus use.

The water from the Ditch may come from and go to some of the Planar rivers, but it's where the waste from all of the factories of the Lower Ward tend to end up in. And it's where partially corroded bodies wash up on the shores every day.