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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 5601619" data-attributes="member: 30022">My justification for the City of Doors is... well... because it's the City of Doors.In other words, exactly what it says on the label. Sigil has the highest concentration of portals anywhere in the Multiverse. For those who have dealings on interests in other planes (angels, devils, proxies of the powers, adventurers, merchants, philosophers, etc), it's like being the CEO of a global business living in Chicago or New York, compared to living in Topeka. You have fast access to nearly anywhere you want to go. You can respond quickly to business opportunities elsewhere. You hear rumors quicker, due to the increased flow of traffic through the doors.The City of Brass, meanwhile, is like (former) Detroit. It is (was) a center of industry. It's not known as a travel hub; it's a place where things get made, where you can deal with one very powerful faction, where you might gain access to ancient secrets and knowledge. But it's rare that the travel agencies book a stopover there for tourists traveling from Celestia to Faerun.So, the City of Doors is the travel hub. It's the place-to-be if you're "in the business" (whatever that may be - quests, souls, proselytizing). What about the other folks who live there? Well, they're just kinda trapped. Sure, there are many flights, leaving by the hour. But sometimes the tickets to where you want to go are just too pricey for the poor schlub who'd really like to go to that island paradise. And sometimes the tickets can't be had at any price (...because the ticket is the heart of a brass dragon, or the taste of the color purple, or some other weird portal key). So, they're trapped. Sure, they could probably hop through that unkeyed portal over there to the Astral Sea (githyanki), Baator (devils) or Gehenna (don't even ask). But, all things told, it's probably better to just stay trapped in the Cage (Sigil's unofficial name amongst the lower classes).As for the Lady of Pain, I see her in this fashion... given the description of Sigil above (i.e. the travel hub for the planes, and the smart place to be for anyone "in the business"), the Lady exists because, if she didn't exist, the multiverse would have to invent her. Why? Because whoever controls the travel hub of the planes, controls all business in those planes. Sure, there are other methods of travel between planes. There are slower and harder to find routes. You could go for an astral projection or use shadow walk or plane shift or whatever strikes your fancy, but portals are your travel-method-of-choice if you're not an uber-powerful spellcaster. And if someone controls the majority of the portals, they get to choose which philosophies spread from plane-to-plane... which gods can quickly and easily spread their faith... which merchants get access to supply and demand... which adventurers can go questing on what planes.Every entity of any power will want a piece of that. Every god will fight to the death to control it. It's like giving a single religion, or nation, control over the Internet. They can exclude anyone else from playing on the 'Webs. That leaves other communication channels available to other groups, but none are nearly as effective.This results in one of two outcomes: either a never-ending war for control, where gods and worlds and dimensions are dropping like flies... or there's something preventing that war from happening. There's some power which prevents that colossal battle for control.I contend that the Lady of Pain is that power, and that she exists because the multiverse itself requires her existence to prevent a war for dominance which can only end when either one philosophy/god controls all of the "doors" (no remaining conflict = no more adventuring), or the multiverse itself is destroyed.She's not necessarily a power that is stronger than the gods. She's not there to rubbish their power, or be an uber-Zeus. She's there because she has to be there, and she may be nothing more than a personification of a force that resists conflict and ultimate destruction (e.g. for the Marvel fan-boys out there... she's Eternity; she personifies the multiverse and acts as an opposing force to death/chaos, but she is not a god/entity in herself).</blockquote>

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