Planescape/Characters

The Lady of Pain
Clearly worthy of a separate category. The legendary and enigmatic ruler of Sigil, a towering and feminine humanoid who wears a mantle of myriad blades. She never speaks, relying on her Dabus' to communicate for her, and takes little active interest in running the city on a day-to-day basis. Rather, her concern is the survival of Sigil as a whole, which she appeals through swiftly applied and brutal methods at her own seeming whim.
 * Appeal to Force: To put it quite bluntly, the Lady rules Sigil because she has the power to crush anything and everything she wants, whenever she wants. As seen when she utterly annihilated the Portal God Aoskar and all his temples and pretty much all of his worshipers, simultaneously, throughout the entire multiverse.
 * Arch Enemy: Possibly could be considered this to Vecna.
 * Cool Crown: Sort of. When seen from a distance, she seems to be wearing a wicked cool headdress made of long, razor-sharp metal blades that encircle her entire head. However, if one gets close enough to see her features more clearly (not recommended, given what she's known to do to people who annoy her) one sees that it's not a headdress... It's part of her body!
 * Deader Than Dead: If the Lady deigns to kill you, then not only do you die without any saving throws, you can never be brought back.
 * The Dreaded: Only a madman would not be afraid of her. When she appears, it's a good idea to stay out of her way and pray she doesn't have an issue with you being there.
 * Fate Worse Than Death: The Lady's non-lethal punishment of choice, referred to as Mazing, traps the victim in an extradimensional labyrinth of randomized design. Whilst stuck inside, the victim's immortal; unable to age or die from injuries (self-inflicted or otherwise) or starvation/thirst, possibly leaving them to run the maze for the rest of eternity. This isn't as fun as it sounds, given you're trapped alone in total isolation, which doesn't tend to do much for a person's sanity. Fortunately, there's always a way out... if you can figure it out. However, even this ability to escape is a form of Cruel Mercy, as it's possible for the offender to exit into a completely different place or time, sometimes thousands of year in the past or future, leaving them no better off than they were when trapped inside of the maze.
 * Fisher Queen: In Sigil, the Lady of Pain's slightest whim becomes physical reality, and her control over it is in many ways stronger than that of a normal Power's control over their domain.
 * Flayed Alive: The most notorious of the Lady's abilities; when her shadow passes over someone she dislikes, that individual immediately drops dead, spontaneously skinned and slashed to pieces. Worse, this flaying extends to their soul, leaving the sucker Deader Than Dead.
 * Geisha: The long robe she wears can best be compared to this.
 * A God I Am Not: Although the Lady's power level is divine at the very least, she refuses to allow others to worship her, swiftly Mazing or Flaying anyone who tries. Some argue that it's because she's an entity of such power that begin called a "mere" god is insulting. It's more commonly accepted, and may be the official explanation, that if she were to allow others to worship her like a god, then that would turn her into an official god, which would collapse the warding around Sigil that keeps gods out.
 * Humanoid Abomination: The Lady looks surprisingly human-like — true, she's a Statuesque Stunner, being over seven feet tall, but otherwise she just looks like a woman with a bizarre taste in headdresses. However, the reality is that she's an entity whose powers make her alien and scary to Demon Lords And Arch Devils, Archangels, Faerie Lords and Gods alike, capable of doing things that otherwise should be impossible.
 * Inexplicably Awesome: Even if there are some D&D fans out there who really don't like her, what else can you call a figure about which we know nothing, but who's capable of keeping the collective might of the entire multiverse at bay through sheer force of will alone?
 * Lord British Postulate: A deliberately invoked aversion; the official rule is to never stat the Lady of Pain, ensuring that she can never be formally fought or killed. Incidentally, this actually does lead to player backlash; one of the more common complaints about Sigil is how the ruler literally exists to be invoked as a handy way to kill off players the DM has taken a disliking to.
 * Malevolent Masked Woman: Some artists depict her face as an expressionless metal mask.
 * Necessarily Evil: Although the Lady is disliked for her callous indifference punctuated with moments of seemingly whimsical brutality, it is grudgingly acknowledged that without fear of her wrath, Sigil would be an endless battleground between various planar forces, mostly the Blood War.
 * Power Floats: Much like her servants the Dabus, she seems to drift above the ground rather than walk.
 * The Old Gods: A few individuals suspect that the Lady may belong to a small category of ancient "uber-Powers", beings inherently mightier than the gods who currently rule over the multiverse. The adventure Die, Vecna, Die! adds fuel to the theory by suggesting that the Lady may be one of the "Ancient Brethren".
 * Riddle for the Ages: All details about who the Lady is, where she comes from, what she is, what she wants, how her powers work, etc, are never to be officially solved.
 * Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: It's outright stated in the books that the Lady of Pain is to be used by Dungeon Masters to punish players who they feel are screwing Sigil up too much. She simply pops them into a maze, or, more commonly, chooses that moment to drift across them and reduce them to a greasy red smear with her flaying shadow.
 * The Scottish Trope: In-Universe, nobody actually calls her "The Lady of Pain" if they can avoid it. They much prefer honorifics and euphemisms, like "The Lady" or "Her Bladed Serenity".
 * Series Mascot: She is without a doubt the face of Planescape, or at least Sigil, and her face is the outright logo for the Planescape line.
 * Shadow Dictator: A variant; she's certainly seen and only a total barmy thinks she doesn't exist, but she almost never communicates with people except by suddenly flaying or mazing them.
 * Tailor-Made Prison: Not only are her Mazes constructed this way, but many have speculated that Sigil itself may be one for her, hence its common moniker of "The Cage".
 * The Voiceless: The Lady absolutely never speaks, ever. here is only one confirmed case in Sigil's history where she has been known to utter a sound, and that was at the end of the module Die, Vecna, Die!, in a place where nobody could hear her. Factol Nilesia once made a claim that the Lady spoke to her in a dream, but Nilesia's sanity was questionable at best. In the rare times that the Lady needed to communicate with someone, her entourage of Dabus spoke for her.
 * Words of Power: That one time she did, it caused the restructuring of the entire multiverse, causing what would eventually be the transition from 2nd to 3rd editions. In game terms.
 * The Worf Effect: Given her status as the most ungodly powerful creature in the entire multiverse in canon, more than a few Dungeon Masters have had her be defeated or outwitted in some way to give their villains "credibility" — which hardcore purists scoff. In a canonical example of it, during the events of Die, Vecna, Die! she is forced to enlist the players' help to intervene with Vecna, as he's managing to hold her off just enough to struggle towards completing his goals of rewriting reality in his own image.

Races
Races unique to the Planescape setting. While some had origins in previous settings, they were "fleshed out" here:

Githyanki
Notorious bandits and raiders of the Astral, Githyanki are one of the two descendants of a race that once served the illithids as slave-labor and food. However, with the aid of two great leaders; Gith and Zerthimon, they rose up and threw off their chains, massacring their former masters. At the pivotal moment of achieving total victory, however, their ancestors schismed due a conflict between their leaders; Gith wanted to conquer the multiverse to ensure that no race would ever have power over them again, whilst Zerthimon argued for a peaceful path focused on internal mastery that would render them immune to slavery. The Githyanki stayed true to Gith, and settled on the Astral, from which they have continued their warlike path ever since. Human Subspecies: The githyanki are actually descended from human beings, mutated by a combination of ancient illithid flesh-crafting and their generations spent in the Astral.
 * A God Am I: Socially, Vlaakith CLVII is pretty much the goddess of the githyanki, but that's not enough for her; she wants to become a full-fledged deity. This aspect became particularly prominent in 3rd Edition, when an entire adventurenote was devoted to her attempt to complete a divine ascension, which the players have to stop.
 * Bad Boss: Vlaakith CLVII consumes the souls of any githyanki who gets too strongnote, out of paranoia that a sufficiently strong githyanki may lead a rebellion against her. She's indoctrinated her people to not protest against this, though sources differ on whether they know she's eating souls and believe it to be an honor anyway, or if she hides the true fate of those she "honors".
 * Berserk Button:
 * The illithids are their oldest and truest Berserk Button, and have top priority in their list of threats. The githyanki devote their lives to rooting out and slaying mind flayers.
 * The githzerai are the githyanki's second-worst enemy, with emphasis on the "second" — they will actually put aside their normal hostilities and team up to destroy illithids. Otherwise, they fight to the death pretty much whenever they see each other.
 * 5th edition adds a new one; being called out on how their "shepherding" of Astral communities is essentially a form of slave ownership will result in their immediately massacring whatever band of unfortunates they are robbing, in order to prove they aren't slavers.
 * Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Downplayed; despite their mammalian ancestry and appearance, githyanki canonically reproduce by laying eggs.
 * Dragon Ascendant: The githyanki have been ruled for untold millennia by the Vlaakith dynasty, descended from Vlaakith I, Gith's second-in-command, who was the only one who returned when the two went to parlay with Tiamat. There are hints that Vlaakith may have betrayed her leader to seize power, but nothing concrete.
 * Elites Are More Glamorous: The most powerful githyanki warriors are all called "knights", and their position is cemented by the fact that they develop powers analogous to a blackguard/antipaladin.
 * God Save Us From the Queen: Vlaakith CLVII, the last of the Vlaakith dynasty, who chose to become a powerful lich-queen rather than die and pass on the throne to her daughter. She rules over her people as a veritable iron-fisted goddess, plots to betray the most ancient githyanki customs, and eats the souls of her strongest warriors to consolidate all her power.
 * Hollywood Atheist: A variation on the trope. The githyanki notably refuse to worship gods, because they view the strictures of faith as being a particularly insidious form of slavery. Clerics are seen as, essentially, "trustees" — quislings who have been granted power to oppress the rest of their people in exchange for loyalty to their masters.
 * Hypocrite: This could practically be considered their hat:
 * The githyanki abhor slavery, yet can only survive in the Astral by preying on other people and essentially reducing small settlements to slavery, forcing them to give up everything but the bare minimum to survive and then leaving them to recover before plundering them again.
 * Their fascistic culture means that the githyanki fundamentally are slaves to their own lich-queen; she even has an almost god-like reverence from her people, who sneer at the faith of other races and denounce the gods as tyrants.
 * Third edition furthers Vlaakith CLVII's "god in all but name" status by having her create a cadre of warlocks who draw power from her, the Ch'r'ai. The module "The Lich-Queen's Beloved" makes it explicit that she intends for them to become her priesthood when she ascends to full godhood.
 * The githyanki respect, trust and admire their red dragon allies, but shun and loath the half-red dragon duthka'giths, privately worrying that they may be intended to replace them.
 * Hypocrisy Nod: "The Lich-Queen's Beloved" notes that many githyanki are unsettled by the Ch'r'ai, who seem a bit too priest-like for the githyanki's tastes.
 * Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons : Thanks to Gith's ancient pact with Tiamat, the githyanki have a long-lasting and deeply respectful partnership with the red dragon subrace of chromatic dragons.
 * Magic Knight: Githyanki fighter-mages are so iconic to the race as a whole that their in-universe name for them, "Gish", has become a memetic term for this trope in the D&D fandom as a whole.
 * Meaningful Name: Githyanki means "Child of Gith" in their own tongue, reinforcing the ancient split that divided their people.
 * Psychic Powers: All githyanki possess potent psionic abilities, a result of the mutations they underwent at illithid hands.
 * Rubber Forehead Alien : Githyanki look like slender humanoids with yellow skin, fangs, and faces that can be described as "skull-like", with sunken eyesockets and semi-vestigial noses that have receded to a flattened expanse of skin with two nasal slits in it.
 * Slave Race: They were this, originally, and they are sworn to never be one again. Ironically, many would argue that they've ended up becoming slaves again to their Lich-Queen, and just haven't accepted it.
 * The Undead: "The Lich-Queen's Beloved" identifies two unique strains of githyanki undead that Vlaakith CLVII creates from those whose souls she consumes: githyanki knights become tl'a'ikith, ghostly warriors wielding spectral swords, and githyanki warlocks and gish become kr'y'izoth, beings of black flame wrapped in tattered wrappings.
 * Won the War, Lost the Peace: They had the illithids on the ropes, but failed to exterminate them, and now the mind flayers have scattered to the point they may never be able to finish the job. The githyanki blame the githzerai for this.
 * You Keep Using That Word: Githyanki refer to all of their arcanists as "warlocks", regardless of if they're members of the actual warlock class or not.

Mephits
One of the lesser races, Mephits are a race of small, fiendish-looking humanoids native to the various elemental planes. They are commonly called by malevolent beings of the Lower Planes as expendable servitors, mostly because, although technically not evil in alignment, mephits are such unpleasant little buggers that they typically end up being killed as soon as they are no longer needed.
 * Cypher Language: There's actually an established form of code language involving sending mephits to people you don't like, where the type(s) of mephit sent and the number of them sent conveys different responses or information. For obvious reasons, you only send mephits to rivals, enemies and other people you just don't like. The precise details of the code?
 * Air: The gift of an air mephit indicates that the sender intends to either ambush the recipient or politically betray them. Naturally, these are usually timed to arrive after the plot is already in motion.
 * Ash: These mephits are normally only sent to get the last word in, as they indicate a very strong and very rude refusal to correspond with the recipient anymore. They signal the recipient is no longer seen as being worth talking talk.
 * Dust: Receiving a Dust Mephit is a subtle threat, typically indicating that the giver has recognized some plot you are holding against him.
 * Earth: Indicating a strong refusal to concede to demands, sending an Earth Mephit to somebody is a very firm declaration of "NO!"
 * Fire: These mephits indicate displeasure with some recent action of the recipient's, with the number sent indicating just how mad the sender is.
 * Ice: These mephits indicate that the recipient is now officially forbidden from entering the home of the sender, with the number of Ice Mephits sent roughly indicating just how harshly they will be punished if they try.
 * Lightning: Serving as a simultaneous warning and boast, the gift of a Lightning Mephit cautions the recipient to reconsider their tactics against the sender, as the sender has acquired some hidden ally who can swing things in their favor. These mephits are often, but not always, a bluff.
 * Magma: One of these mephits is only sent in response to the sender having recently bested the recipient in some intellectual or diplomatic challenge. Basically, it's the sender's way of gloating.
 * Mineral: An exception to the general rule of mephit code, the gift of a Mineral Mephit indicates that the sender is willing to compromise on something and is asking for more direct communication to be opened.
 * Mist: Getting one of these indicates that someone close to you is an assassin, but the mephit itself almost never knows who. Given the usual audience for mephit codes, it's typically intended to inspire paranoia.
 * Ooze: These mephits are intended as sarcastic gifts, and basically serve as a way for the sender to say that the recipient is a weakling.
 * Radiant: Like the Mineral Mephits, these are an exception to the generally hostile nature of the mephit code. The gift of a Radiant Mephit is essentially like receiving a white flag; it indicates that the sender wants to declare a truce.
 * Salt: As the most unpleasant of all mephits, sending somebody a Salt Mephit serves as a declaration of open warfare between sender and recipient.
 * Smoke: Similar in nature to Salt Mephits, but less extreme; the gift of a Smoke Mephit is a sign of insolence and contempt, and is usually used to declare a vendetta.
 * Steam: Serving as opposite of the Earth Mephit, the gift of a Steam Mephit indicates that the sender is agreeing to some request of the recipient. There is, however, a connotation of gloating — it serves as a way to say "yes, but I told you so!"
 * Void: As mentioned above, the Plane of Void (or Vacuum, depending on where you look) has no native mephits, so "to get a Void Mephit" means to never get a reply.
 * Water: Serving as formal answer to an Air Mephit, the gift of a Water Mephit indicates a sarcastic congratulation on a failed attempt by the recipient to trap or plot against the sender.
 * The Mimir fansite also adds the Shadow Mephit, which, in the Mephit Code, means that one of the recipient's enemies has discovered one of the recipient's plans and is now subverting that plan by manipulating it to their own ends. For obvious reasons, this is the most terrifying mephit it's possible to send to beings that fancy themselves The Chessmaster, although fear of Gone Horribly Right keeps the vast majority of people "honest" and so refusing to use Shadow Mephits for bluff messages.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Salt Mephits are known for their sarcastic and acidulous wit, which makes them perhaps the most unpleasant of their kind and so typically the shortest lived once summoned.
 * Elemental Embodiment: Unlike their equivalents the Imp and the Quasit, mephits are a kind of lowly elemental creature. Traditionally, there is a mephit for every elemental, quasielemental and paraelemental plane bar the Plane of Vacuum/Void, which has no inherent life. 5th edition drastically undercut this by instead making mephits only native to the paraelemental planes (quasielemental planes no longer existing), reducing them to just the four breeds of magma, ooze, smoke and ice.
 * The Gadfly: Mephits are notorious for both their love of mischief and their poor impulse control, which leads to them incessantly pulling pranks or making a nuisance of themselves.
 * The Imp: They actually form a trinity of imp-like creatures in D&D, alongside the Imp (a lesser baatezu) and the Quasit (a lesser tanar'ri). They stand apart from their kin by being elementals rather than fiends.
 * Small Name, Big Ego: Despite being small, weak and often stupid, mephits are notoriously braggadocios and vain, loving to give themselves absurdly pompous titles.

Modrons
The outsiders native to Mechanus, the Lawful Neutral plane, who originate from their segment of the gear-world known as Regulus. The Modrons are a bizarre hierarchy of construct-like beings, starting at the barely-sentient Monodrone and ascending all the way to the godlike Primus, the One and the Prime.
 * Clockwork Creature: Subverted; they look like cyborgs, and are made partially of metal, but they're very much living creatures. Which means, for instance, spells that only work on living beings, like healing potions, work on them just fine.
 * Everyone Has Standards: One of the Secundus tainted by Orcus participated in a traditional challenge of killing the most chaotic beings as possible in one week to decide who would succeed the Primus Orcus killed and impersonated before leaving. He did so by invading the Gnome afterlife with his army. He was disqualified, as while the Gnomes are Chaotic Good, they're not opposed to the Modrons, and he also didn't do the killing himself.
 * Hive Mind: Sort of. Modrons are in a sense, extensions of Primus, a godlike being whose own thoughts direct and move the whole race.
 * Lawful Stupid: As elemental incarnations of the Lawful Neutral Character Alignment, Modrons are lawful to the extent that it makes them seem quite insane to human perspectives. To put this in perspective; during the second adventure of "The Great Modron March", the players have to deal with the fact that the Modrons refuse to accept that a city in their way has changed in the three centuries since the last march and so will blithely march their way through the city, smashing buildings that are in their path and trampling any living creature that fails to get out of the way.

Rilmani
The outsiders native to the Outlands, the True Neutral plane. Cold-hearted objectivists to the core, they consider themselves the caretakers of the multiverse, intervening throughout reality to keep everything ticking along in cosmic harmony.
 * Balance Between Good and Evil: Overlaps with Both Order and Chaos Are Dangerous. The cornerstone of their purpose is that the rilmani believe the four great cosmic forces — Law, Chaos, Good and Evil — must all be kept in a fairly balanced state, and that to allow otherwise would cause the multiverse to come apart.
 * Stupid Neutral: Like all exemplars, they are defined by their ingrained connection to one Character Alignment — in their case, True Neutral. Because they see this as keeping a balance between the forces of Law, Chaos, Good and Evil, that means they do actively alternate between working alongside and working against different powers and factions to adjust the Balance. However, unlike their compatriots the Modrons and Slaadi, they're not so caught up in this to be unaware of the potential for this to simply end up supporting chaos — Jemorille the Exile was banished from the Outlands due to his repeated bungling via being very hamfisted in his methods.

Slaadi
The outsiders native to Limbo, the Chaotic Neutral plane. These bizarre, flippant, frog-like creatures act as though virtually mindless, roaming aimlessly through the planes in search of prey and entertainment.
 * Chaotic Stupid: As elemental incarnations of the Chaotic Neutral Character Alignment, Slaadi are chaotic to the extent that it makes them seem quite insane to human perspectives.
 * Chest Burster: The slaadi reproductive cycle is based on two colors. Red slaadi infect victims with tadpole-like slaad larvae that eventually burst out of their host's body, creating blue slaadi (or green slaadi, if the host was a powerful wizard). Blue slaadi have a mutagenic toxin in their bite that can turn victims into new red slaadi.
 * Extreme Omnivore: As "chaos elementals", Slaadi will eat just about anything that catches their eyes.
 * Reality Warper: They have the ability to shape the essence of Limbo to a degree proportionate to their intelligence; mortals can learn how to do this, but slaadi do it by instinct.

Yugoloths
The third branch of the fiend family, the daemons to the tanar'ri (demons) and baatezu (devils). Lords of Gehenna, the Neutral Evil with a hint of Lawful plane, although they originated in the Grey Waste, the pure Neutral Evil plane.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: Subverted. The lowest ranking Yugoloth is actually stronger than the next rank. Those who realize this get singled out as potential candidates for promotion.
 * Evil Tower of Ominousness: They have two of these, the Tower of the Arcanaloths on Gehenna, and the much larger Khin-Oin on the Grey Waste. Attempts have been made to build a third tower on Carceri, but the geheleths keep tearing it down.
 * Hermaphrodite: According to the "Faces of Evil: The Fiends" sourcebook, yugoloths are all either hermaphroditic or genderless, in terms of reproductive capability, adopting genders pretty much according to their whim.
 * No Mouth: The highest ranking Yugoloths, the Ultroloths, don't have mouths.
 * Plaguemaster : The Oinoloth (the powerful Yugoloth that currently rules the tower of Khin-Oin) can control the plagues of the Grey Waste.
 * Neglectful Precursors: Legends tell of the baernoloths, ancient fiends who created the yugoloths, and also purged Law and Chaos from themselves by transferring it into larvae which became the first baatezu and tanar'ri. Of course, while the baernoloths clearly do exist (one of them plays a vital role in one module) almost all legends about them are told by the yugoloths, and thus subject to scrutiny.
 * War for Fun and Profit: Some believe that they are behind the Blood War.

Factions
The primary social grouping of the Planescape setting, the Factions are distinctive philosophical views about the purpose of the multiverse who have managed to acquire positions of strong political power in the city of Sigil. Originally, there were over 49 recognized factions, but in an event called The Winnowing, the Lady of Pain demanded that they condense down into 15 distinct groups. After the events of the Faction War, covered in adventure form, the Factions lost their political power and became indistinguishable from the Sects.

The Athar (Aka the Lost, the Defiers)
A faction dedicated to proving that the powers that rule the Outer Planes are not "gods" as they claim to be, but frauds who must be overthrown for the good of the multiverse. Their headquarters is the Shattered Temple in the Lower Ward. Their Factol prior to the Faction War is Terrance, a male planar human of Lawful Good alignment, who is a 19th level Priest of the Great Unknown. The Faction War sees Terrance Mazed by the Lady of Pain, and the Athar are forced to mostly quit the City of Doors to instead set up a new city for themselves at the base of the Spire, where the powers can't reach them. A few remain behind, hiding in the Undercity of Sigil. Nay-Theist: With the minor twist that a portion of the faction are theists, believing in a (non-personified) Great Unknown. They just don't believe the 'gods' running around on the planes are real gods. ===
 * Fire-Forged Friends : They and the Godsmen were once enemies, until they figured out their ideas were Not So Different; they became close allies as a result.
 * Hollywood Atheist: There is a strong vibe of this to the Athar.
 * Their founders were Dunn (a man who wanted Poseidon to die because Poseidon and his church had taken all his possessions, his wife had been seduced into being a Poseidon priest's concubine, and his daughter had been stolen to Arborea by a proxy of Poseidon), and Ciro (a dispossessed Loki priest who wondered why gods, who should be beyond such things, would be dependent upon the faith of others for their power).
 * Meanwhile, their current factol became who he is when he realized that it was his own intellect and intuition that had helped him through every problem in his life, rather than the aid of his goddess, Mishkal.
 * Athar tactics include a lot of stereotypical atheist strategies, like trying to Logic Bomb priests or induce crises of faith.
 * Honor Before Reason: A disadvantage of being a member is that an Athar is not allowed to accept aid from clerics of specific deities; this includes healing magic, should the Athar be injured.

Believers of the Source (Aka the Godsmen)
A faction who believe that life is a series of tests and challenges that must be overcome; as a person incarnates, their actions cause them to move further up or down the ladder of being, until eventually they achieve godhood. Their main base of operations is the Great Foundry in the Lower Ward, from which the produce all of the metal goods of Sigil. Their last Factol was Ambar Vergrove, a Neutral Good male planar half-elf, also a 19th level ranger. The Faction War results in Factol Vergrove being Mazed by the Lady, though many of his followers believe he Ascended instead. Forced to leave by the Lady's decrees, many Godsmen end up merging with the also-leaving Signers faction to form a new philosophy, known as the Mind's Eye, based on core elements of both the original faction philosophies.
 * Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence : Their goal, kind of. Technically you can just walk to a higher plane of existence in Sigil, but they want to belong there as gods. (They also claim that the gods themselves are supposed to ascend as well eventually; it's kind of like Nirvana.)
 * Eternal Engine: The Great Foundry is like this, although unusually for this trope it does have a very necessary, specific use. It makes all metal goods for Sigil, except weapons and armor; the Doomguard handle those.
 * Secret Test of Character: They believe every being in existence is being tested. They aren't quite sure what the tests are (like whether they have to be Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic, or whether it's something else) but they try to figure that out.

Bleak Cabal (aka Bleakers)
An ancient faction, defined primarily by their belief in the utter lack of any great meaning or hidden purpose to The Multiverse. Their role in the Cage is predominantly one of charity and compassion; they operate free soup kitchens, run orphanages, and take care of the mentally ill from their headquarters in the Gatehouse, an ominous structure at the edge of the Hive Ward. Their Factol was formerly the Chaotic Neutral male planar half-orc Lhar, an 8th level fighter whose parents (a blind male human and a female orc) moved to Sigil in hopes that their Interspecies Romance would be tolerated better there; unfortunately, they found it difficult to get jobs and eventually had no choice but to give Lhar to the Bleaker orphanage. At the time of the Faction War, Lahr had already consigned himself to the Madhouse, having been replaced by Sruce, who is sent to the mazes. The Bleakers are largely unaffected by the events of that plot; they simply shrug their shoulders, stop calling themselves a faction, and keep on as they were before.
 * The Anti-Nihilist: the good aligned members anyway.
 * Bedlam House: The Gatehouse has been known to end up like this at times, depending on who is currently in charge of the Bleakers.
 * Berserk Button: Bleakers really don't like the "all your pain and suffering is a test" aspect of the Godsmen's philosophy. It can be one of the few things that makes them actually get angry.
 * Dark Is Not Evil: They officially believe the multiverse is meaningless and pointless, with there being no great purpose to anything, but they are mostly not of evil alignments and, indeed, dedicate themselves to charity and good works — if there is no point, then there is no reason not to try and alleviate the suffering of others, is there?
 * Determined Defeatist: What keeps Bleakers going as individuals instead of succumbing to apathy and dying; there is no point to anything they do, but they have to keep trying.
 * The Spook: The insignia of the Bleakers is a horned helmet made of violet metal surrounded by a black starburst. Whatever or whoever this represents is unknown. It was painted on the floor of the Gatehouse's courtyard when they moved in centuries ago, and nobody alive in Sigil remembers its meaning. Still, a forgotten, meaningless symbol fits their philosophy well.

Doomguard (aka Sinkers)
A faction who worships entropy, believing that all things will inevitably end and it is only proper to celebrate the destruction that awaits all. They control the Armory, the great storehouse of all weapons in Sigil located at the edge between the Lady's War and the Lower Ward, and thusly serve as a restraint on the war capabilities of the Harmonium. Their Factol was Pentar, a Chaotic Neutral female planar human, 20th level ranger, who actively encouraged the Doomguard to be active in furthering entropy, driving the majority who violently lash out against the multiverse to drive them to destruction. Wielder of the Blade of Modron Death, she has less interest in her faction and more in planning for her own upcoming attempt to destroy the next Great Modron March. Factol Pentar was one of the first Factols to be Mazed during the Faction War, and the subsequent battles see the Doomguard rendered virtually extinct; those who survive are hated by the populace of Sigil with almost as much intensity as the members of the Mercykillers and Fated. The survivors flee to their fortresses on the Negative Quasielemental Planes, but because of their ethos they seem likely to fade away into oblivion.
 * Dark Is Not Evil: The Doomguard may not have the nicest sounding goal, but there are members of all ethical alignments and even some Good aligned member.
 * Omnicidal Maniac: As mentioned, there are Doomguards who actively believe entropy needs a helping hand in the total consumption of everything, and so try to speed it along.
 * Straw Nihilist: A rare variant where they believe the active pursuit of universal annihilation is a worthy pursuit in its own right.

Dustmen (aka the Dead) A faction that believe all life and afterlife as seen in the Great Wheel is a falsehood; instead, all who think they are alive are instead dead souls, trapped in a false perception of life. Only by letting go of this misconception and becoming detached from the lie can they fall into True Death, and whatever passes beyond. As a consequence, they operate the Mortuary in the Hive Ward and make themselves useful by collecting and disposing of all the many corpses that Sigil generates every day. Their Factol was Skall, a Neutral Evil male planar lich of unknown origin, and a 19th level wizard. The Faction War sees the Dustmen dissolved as an official faction, but they retain their role as the gravekeepers of Sigil, even if their philosophy starts to wither out with the Mazing of Skall, whom is believed by the Dustmen to have officially ascended to True Death at last.
 * The Coroner: When in charge of the Mortuary, they were in charge of collecting, processing, and disposing of Sigil's dead, along with everything else that entailed. Given the high population density of Sigil, there's no space for cemeteries, the Mortuary having portals to every known Prime world. The Dustmen would typically send a corpse to wherever the next of kin desired; unclaimed ones would be cremated via portals to the Elemental Plane of Fire.
 * Dark Is Not Evil: Officially, the Dusties lean towards the neutral and lawful scale of the alignment axis, and they do contribute a vital role to the running of Sigil. Still, as is lampshaded in "The Factol's Manifesto" sourcebook, for all that it's well-meant, most people tend to view somebody who hopes for the demise of everyone else to be evil.
 * Dead All Along: The central dogma of their philosophy; they think everyone is dead. Some are just more so than others.
 * Nature Hero: Oddly enough, a lot of Druids are members. Dustmen Druids see death as a necessity in the Circle of Life analogy.
 * The Necromancer: A lot of necromancers are part of the Dustmen. The Dusties also use large numbers of walking dead (animated skeletons and zombies) as manual labourers, and, two of the five "Circles" (ranks in the Dustmen hierarchy) are actually comprised solely of free-willed undead.
 * Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Some Dustmen are good, some are evil, but almost all of them are creepy. To give one of many examples, In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil mentions a member named Mhasha Zakk, who runs a taxidermy shop in the Merchant's Ward, who acts like a sweet old granny save for the fact she really loves her work, and if a customer is an attractive type, she might ask for his or her corpse after his death. And she is deadly serious about it. What makes this especially creepy is the fact that at least three customers apparently accepted this offer - they are displayed in her shop.
 * Omnicidal Maniac: "The Factol's Manifesto" reveals Skall is actually building an immense army of the undead with plans to wipe out all life in the multiverse in order to "help" them achieve True Death. It's unclear if he really thinks this will do them a favor, or he just wants the ultimate power that would come from reducing all life in the multiverse to his undead slave. Given the outcome of the Faction War, it would seem this plan is a failure.
 * Secret Circle of Secrets: The higher ranks of the Dustmen are similar to this. Even amongst the Dusties themselves, few people know that the Third and Second Circles are comprised exclusively of Dustmen killed and reanimated as undead by Skall himself.
 * The Stoic: Encouraged as a way to avoid attachment.
 * Thou Shalt Not Kill: Amazingly, the Dustmen try to avoid killing people through violence if they can. They believe that only via natural death can mortals find true enlightenment. This does not mean, however, that all of them are pacifists that will not fight and will automatically grant mercy to enemies.
 * Unwitting Pawn: It's possible that the Dustmen may, in fact, have all been mere suckers who bought into the lies of a malevolent lich and have actually made a positive (or at least not-evil) philosophy out of them.

The Fated (aka the Takers, the Heartless)
A faction dedicated to the idea of taking what you want from those you can take it from. They serve Sigil in the role of its tax collectors, operating out of the Hall of Records. Their Factol is a male prime human from Oerth (though he claims to have been born on Toril) named Rowan Darkwood, a Chaotic Good epically powerful individual (he's a dual-classed ranger/priest of Heimdall, with 19 levels in the former class and 20 in the latter class). The Fated earn great hatred because it is Factol Darkwood who sparks the Faction War. They are forced to flee the Cage and settle on Ysgard, eventually evolving into an arguably purer incarnation of their philosophy that focuses on taking what they need and not what they want.
 * Ambition Is Evil: Beyond the fact that the Takers can basically be seen as this themselves, Rowan Darkwood's ambition leads this officially Chaotic Good man to commit atrocities that include seducing a mentally ill girl young enough to be his daughter, marrying her for power, selling her into slavery to the Fiends, and then sparking the infamous Faction War.
 * At Least I Admit It: Call a Fated selfish, greedy, or uncaring of others, and his typical response is, "that's bad?" To them it's simply self-preservation.
 * Good Is Not Nice: Whilst Lawful Good characters cannot join the Takers, but there are more than a few Neutral Good and Chaotic Good Takers.
 * Honor Before Reason: A Taker cannot accept charity, and cannot own anything that he did not take or earn for himself. This includes genuinely offered aid from others; a member of the Fated cannot even allow another person to heal him if he's injured.
 * I Own This Town]: The Fated were in charge of collecting taxes, potentially making Darkwood the most powerful individual in Sigil other than the Lady. His downfall was not settling for second-best.
 * Might Makes Right: The fundamental core of their philosophy; take what you can, and to the hells with everybody else.
 * The Scapegoat: As one might expect, the members who survived the Faction War are not well-liked, and pretty much everyone else blames them for what happened. seeing as Darkwood started the whole thing.
 * Social Darwinist: They may believe in Might Makes Right, but they aren't hypocrites about it; if you're strong enough to take what you want from a Fated, and proceed to do so, then it belongs to you and they just have to get stronger. Life is about the struggle to get stronger, and the weak deserve no pity or aid.
 * Stable Time Loop: The eventual fate of Factol Darkwood. In short, he starts the Faction War with the intent of using it to cover his efforts to obtain the Labyrinth Stone and use it to cast the Sigil spell and claim control of Sigil. He promptly gets Mazed by the Lady on day 19. Eventually, he escapes, only to find the Maze has released him into Sigil some 500 years into the past. This version of Darkwood is imprisoned by the Bleakers as a barmy and renamed Gifad. Towards the end of the Faction War, Gifad is released or escapes and is used to try and end the Faction War by casting the Sigil spell with the aide of the Labyrinth Stone. He fails and is cast into the past, over 10000 years ago. Having lost his memory, he studies magic and eventually becomes the wizard who created the Labyrinth Stone and the Sigil spell in the first place — only to be sealed inside the Stone when he attempts to cast it. And then, millennia later, Rowan Darkwood will be born, learn of the Stone and the spell, and begin the Faction War all over again.

Fraternity of Order (aka Guvners)
A faction dedicated to the belief that all things in the multiverse are governed by laws and if these laws are uncovered, one can control reality itself. They form the trinity of justice in Sigil with the aid of the Harmonium and the Mercykillers; the Guvners create and define the laws, as well as try criminals, while the Hardheads catch the crooks and the Red Death punish them. As a result, their faction headquarters is the City Court, at the heart of the Lady's Ward. Their Factol is Hashkar, a male planar dwarf Sage of Lawful Neutral alignment. Unbeknownst to almost anyone outside the highest Guvners (except the Revolutionary League — and even they don't really know (or much care) that it's true), Hashkar is actually a petitioner to The Lady. According to the story Hashkar was once a planar dwarf who came to revere the Lady of Pain as the law at the center of the multiverse. He has never left Sigil, even for the faction HQ on Mechanus. And his single-minded dedication to law makes him have a personality just like that of a petitioner. It is possible that the Lady allows him to worship her in secret, but if that were to come out she'd have to kill him as an example. He is murdered by a Xaositect assassin during the Faction War; this leads the Fraternity to declare war on the Xaositects as a whole. After the Lady of Pain makes her decree, they retreat en-mass from Sigil to their headquarters on Mechanus, to begin the laborous process of electing a new Factol and restructuring themselves to return to Sigil.
 * Awesomeness By Analysis : What they hope to achieve.
 * Corrupt Bureaucrat/Obstructive Bureaucrat: Common negative stereotypes of Guvners, and one that evil-aligned Guvners tend to easily fit into.
 * Insufferable Genius: A common trait amongst the Guvners. For example, they almost never allow for appeals against their sentences — after all, they know all the rules, so if a Guvner made a ruling, then it must obviously be the right one.
 * The Judge: Typically Guvner's job in Sigil's justice system, although some are also councils and lawyers.
 * Order vs. Chaos: Firmly on the "Order" side of things; all members of the Fraternity of Order must be Lawful, though whether they are Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral or Lawful Evil is unimportant.
 * Loophole Abuse: Some of them can actually manifest powers by exploiting loopholes in the laws of the universe itself. In game terms, learning how to do this is a benefit of being a member; however, you can only use a power like this a limited number of times before the loophole closes.
 * Motor Mouth: Their former leader, the now-deceased Factol Haskar, was notorious for this. It was unwise to ask him a question (even one as simple as "Which way to the exit?") unless you planned on listening to him for a long time. Haskar tended to lecture at the drop of a hat, and would always answer questions in the most complete and thorough ways possible.
 * Refuge in Audacity: The Guvners openly admit that they seek to know the rules so they can bend them in their favor, with the eventual goal of doing this to the rules that hold reality itself together. People let them do it anyway, simply because they're the only guys who really know how everything works now.
 * Rules Lawyer: The Fraternity of Order is basically what happens when these kinds of people unite to try and take over the universe.
 * Vast Bureaucracy: What the Fraternity is like, and what any place controlled by them or where they are drawn to tends to be.

Free League (aka Indepts)
Aka "the Faction that isn't", the Indeps are the loosely aligned coalition of independent Sigil natives who, for whatever reason, refuse to join one of the other factions. They are defined, as far as that term can be applies to them, by their belief in and promotion of acceptance, balance and individuality. This means the majority of Indeps are Neutral in some way — True Neutral, Neutral Good or Neutral Evil, typically, with True Neutrals and Neutral Goods being most common. The Free League is regarded with disdain but usually indifference by most "Order-focused" Factions; the Harmonium are a hostile exception. Because of their loose nature, they have no official Factol, though there are three individuals respected enough to be "unofficial leaders"; Bria Tomay (planar female human, 14th level Chaotic Neutral bard) and the twins Lethea & Lesander (female and male, respectively, prime wemics, 6th level Lawful Neutral fighters). All three of them are Mazed during the Faction War, though the Free League, understandably, accuses the Harmonium of having them murdered. The ending of the Faction War is no sweat for the Free League, who simply repeat that they are not a faction and get down to enjoying life without the Harmonium oppressing them.
 * Anarchy Is Chaos: Averted. They get along just fine without a Factol.
 * Blessed with Suck: Of all the Factions, they are the only one that can be said to have the actual attention of the Lady of Pain upon them even before the War. This is not a good thing.
 * To put it in proper perspective; right after the Great Upheaval, when the Factions were reorganized into the 15 seen here, the Free League swelled to over one million members. The Lady, annoyed by the fact that one of the least tractable/manipulatable Factions was now so strong, promptly took action; over the span of 50 years, she personally winnowed the membership down to under 20000 souls by means of Mazing or eviscerating whoever caught her attention.
 * At the time that "The Factol's Manifesto" was written, her amusement at the fact that Indep historians were attributing the mass culling to a mysterious plague led her to create that plague to infect the Indeps at random.
 * Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: This more or less sums up the relationship between the Harmonium and the Free League.

The Harmonium (aka Hardheads)
A faction originating out of a Prime world called Ortho, founded around the ideal of bringing about the greatest good for the greatest number. No matter what it takes or if others like that. A fairly young faction, only 500 years old at the time of Planescape's initial release, they began when a group of adventurers set out to "rid the country of chaos and bring peace to the land". Somehow, they went from succeeding at their goal to leading a righteous crusade to extend the same peace and harmony over the rest of Ortho, until all non-Lawfuls had been eradicated. Disturbed by the fact that chaos and disorder would still plague their lawful, regimented society, the Harmonium turned its attention to what it believed was the source; the Outer Planes. After an initial crusade to the Lower Planes failed, they resettled in Sigil as a "beachhead" in their conquest, and have since made themselves useful. Allies to the Fraternity of Order (who form the court system) and the Mercykillers (who punish the guilty), the Harmonium have become the police officers of the Cage, operating out of the City Barracks in the Lady's Ward. Their Factol is Sarin, a male human Paladin (16th level) from Ortho, who is married to Faith, a Lawful Good 12th level cleric and a female planar human. During the Faction War, Sarin is assassinated by the Revolutionary League, who publicly take responsibility, and his widow takes over; it is her benevolent commands that persuades them to leave peacefully and retreat to Arcadia, where there are signs that the group will become less militaristic. Few hold any belief that the change will be permanent, though.
 * Chaos Is Evil: The cornerstone of their Factional doctrine; harmony is the only worthy goal, and opposing that, even by just having a different opinion of what harmony means, is evil.
 * City Guards: Of Sigil, before the Faction War.
 * Dirty Cop: Because of how willing the Hardheads can be to exploit their power as Sigil's City Guards, and how they close ranks in the face of external interference, this is the (rather justified!) stereotype the Sigilites have of them.
 * Good Is Not Nice: The Harmonium's intentions and overall goal are benevolent, but their actions in pursuit of it... well, see below.
 * Knight Templar: A big part of why the Harmonium is so disliked by everyone, despite their good intentions. The Harmonium will bring peace and order to the universe — by force, if need be.
 * Their homeworld of Ortho has had all Chaotic and even Neutral races completely wiped out in pursuit of the Harmonium's "perfection". This includes Chaotic Good and Neutral Good races like elves and pixies.
 * They're so bad about this that their former headquarters on Nemausus generated so much evil in the name of good that it turned the plane's Character Alignment into Lawful Neutral dumping it from Arcadia into Mechanus.
 * Never Live It Down: In-Universe. The Harmonium's accidental planar slip of Nemausus, the third layer of Arcadia, is a big thumb in the eye to the faction's goals, abilities and beliefs.
 * People often aren't too impressed with the Harmonium when they find out about the whole "genocide of Chaotic Good and Neutral Good races on Ortho" thing.
 * In "The Factol's Manifesto", it's mentioned that those who are familiar with Rajaat and his Champions from Athas have been known to directly compare the Hardheads to them — something the Harmonium vigorously protests against.
 * Order Is Not Good: Despite their view that Chaos Is Evil, the Harmonium are practically Sigil's poster-boys for how being too devoted to Law above all else can make you a monster as bad as any fiend.
 * To put this into perspective; if the Factol finds out about the Lawful Evil Hardheads who have been murdering Indeps, they will be chastised... but only for doing so without proper orders; the Harmonium expects to one day officially crack down upon the Free League, so their actions would have been fine if they hadn't been acting independently.
 * Order vs. Chaos: The Harmonium stands on the "Order" side and is allied with the similarly Order-focused Fraternity of Order and Mercykillers, whilst it remains bitter enemies with the Chaos-focused Free League, Revolutionary League, Xaositects, Fated and Doomguard. They also don't like the Bleakers much. Needless to say, Lawful alignment is essential to joining the Hardheads... of course, maybe if they were willing to cut out the Lawful Evil members as well, they might not be as bad at doing what they say they want to do.
 * Patron Deity: Most of them regard the Oeridian god of justice St. Cuthbert as their patron; he is worshiped by most spiritual leaders within the faction, including the current leader.
 * From Nobody to Nightmare: According to legend, they started as nothing more than a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, like the typical adventuring party. They grew into an Army of Thieves and Whores, then a well-disciplined army, and eventually, an army of such great size that they brought order and peace (or their perception of it) to Orthos. (But then they figured, why stop there?)
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Despite the bad reputation they have achieved, the Harmonium keeps attracting Lawful Good types, who believe that their cause is worthy even despite how they attempt to bring it about.

The Mercykillers (aka The Red Death)
A faction dedicated to the pursuit of justice above all else, born from the union of two similar factions at the end of the Great Upheaval; the Lawful Good Sons of Mercy and the Lawful Evil Sodkillers. The Faction War sees them split back into these two factions again, for the most part. Lawful Neutral: This is the ideal alignment that the Mercykillers aspire towards, to the extent that Lawful Good and Lawful Evil Mercykillers are prone to suffering penalties to their faction abilities due to the conflict between their viewpoint and the ideals of the faction.
 * The Determinator: If you break the law, they will find you.
 * Fluffy Tamer: Their mascot is a wyvern called the Wyrm, which was kept in a tower near the Prison. Mostly it's a pet, but it did have uses; first of all, the worst criminals that received the death penalty (usually for betraying the city) were fed to the Wyrm. Second, its venom could be made into Truth Serums, making interrogations incredibly easy.
 * The Fettered: Mercykillers officially cannot act to punish injustice until and unless the criminal is properly defined as such. In the triad of lawmaker factions, the Harmonium catches the criminals, the Fraternity of Order convict them, and the Mercykillers punish them. Mercykiller players are forbidden from catching or judging enemies of their own initiative, as a result; the best they can usually do is note down injustices in order to present them to their faction and get them avenged as soon as possible. Of course, one reason the crime rate around the Prison is almost zero was due to too many rumors of them breaking that rule.
 * Knight Templar: Only MUCH more so then the Harmonium; the Lawful Evil side of the Mercykillers holds far more sway over the faction than it does in the Harmonium.
 * The Jailer: Being in charge of the Prison pretty much means they control Sigil's correction system.

Revolutionary League (aka Anarchists)
An extremely loose faction based pretty much entirely on the idea of opposing the other factions.
 * And Then What?: All of them want to bring down "The System". Exactly what they intend to build in its place is a matter of debate.
 * In a sense, they got exactly what they wanted at the end of the Faction War: all the factions, even theirs, were gone as the major players in Sigil. What they should do next is a matter of hot debate between the various cells of the faction.
 * Bomb Throwing Anarchist: A stereotype of the Revolutionary League, and not entirely inaccurate; the League is willing to do just about anything to bring down the Factions.
 * The Mole: A very common tactic. One story claims that one of them was able to become Factol of the Harmonium before he was caught!
 * Order Versus Chaos: The League is firmly on the side of "Chaos", which prevents them from taking in members of the Lawful alignments, and thus their relationship with the Factions is colored by this lens; they bear the greatest enmity for those factions that strongly promote a Lawful viewpoint, namely the trinity of Guvners, Hardheads and Mercykillers. Those factions with more Chaotic leanings are less important to the average Anarchist.
 * Properly Paranoid: The extremely loose-knit "cell" structure of the Revolutionary League, whilst it does sometimes hinder its ability to work together, has kept it safe from the Harmonium for centuries.
 * We ARE Struggling Together: The League is so loosely-knit, communication between cells so poor, and distrust so rampant, that it frequently works against its own interests. "The Factol's Manifesto" explicitly states that the Revolutionary League has ultimately achieved nothing because it's too disorganized to bring its strength to bear, and often acts at cross-purpose to itself.

Sign of One (aka Signers)
A faction who believe that a person's willpower defines reality around them.
 * Clap Your Hands If You Believe: A solipsistic variant.
 * Deader Than Dead: A Signer that accidentally believes themselves out of existence could only be restored by a Wish spell or another Signer managing to believe them back into existence.
 * It's All About Me: This is literally the central belief of all members, but funnily enough not all of them are jerks.
 * Narcissist: This is a group that claims one person is the center of the universe, and while they are at a loss to reveal who, they are certain this person is a Signer. As a result, they come across as this.
 * Power at a Price: Imagining, the power to reshape reality through sheer force of will, is not risk-free; if the Signer's mind wavers at the wrong moment, it can be disastrous. Factotums who roll a "1" on their Imagining check suffer a backlash, as they inadvertently convince themselves that they are figments of imagination; this reduces them to a phantasmal version of themselves, until they can manage to convince themselves that they are real and thus Imagine themselves back to reality. Factors, whose Imagining power is proportionally greater, suffer proportionally greater risks; on a roll of a "1", their conviction in their nonexistence causes their powers to erase them from existence.
 * Ret Gone: It has not been proven, but many detractors claim they can (and have) made some of their opposition disappear from existence simply by willing it. Of course, if it is true, it seems unusual for a detractor to say this and thus confirm their claims.
 * This can actually befall Signers themselves if they fumble their Imagination power!
 * Your Mind Makes It Real: This is both the core of the faction's belief and the benefit bestowed by faction membership; higher members of the faction can literally create things out of thin air, or destroy them, just by willing it to happen. However, this isn't entirely risk-free...

Society of Sensation (aka Sensates)
A faction who believe that the multiverse only exists insofar as you can experience; thus, by experiencing all the multiverse has to offer, you will understand the true purpose behind existence.
 * Data Crystal: They create the Sensory Stones, a Magitech equivalent to this.
 * The Hedonist: Some Sensates are this, but they are looked down upon by most true Sensates and quietly pushed out of the way.
 * Sense Freak: This is the aspiration of the Sensates as a whole; because the multiverse only exists in so far as you have experienced it, you need to get out there and experience more things.
 * Transferable Memory: The Sensates use their Sensory Stones to duplicate memories and hold them in storage, so anyone can use that Stone to experience all facets of that memory as if they were actually there. This makes being a Sensate more achievable, as it allows a member to experience things that they are either physically incapable of doing (for example, flying under their own power), or unwilling to do (cheat on a loved one, have a limb cut off, etc). They also make a very profitable income by allowing non-Sensates to use the Sensory Stones themselves, for a fee.

The Transcendant Order (aka Ciphers)
A faction believing that instinct is superior to thought and so the body must be trained to act without conscious thought in order to achieve true transcendence.
 * Don't Think, Feel: All members of the Faction must act on their first impulse, as per Factional doctrine.
 * Karma Houdini: While very little of the responsibility for the Faction War falls on them, they were virtually untouched and unpunished for it. While no longer an organization with an official charter, former members still run the Great Gymnasium, unofficially spreading their ideals through the Cage and the Planes, while Rhys was the only Factol not killed or sent to the Mazes during the War, and is now a member of Sigil's city council.
 * Leeroy Jenkins: Well, not exactly, but their philosophy gives a Player Character who joins a rather unique penalty: once he has decided on an action, he is not allowed to change his mind. (In other words, this is where a "no takebacks" rule is mandatory for that player). This does not mean the Player will always become a Leeroy Jenkins, but it might increase the risk or it happening.

Xaositects (aka Chaosmen)
A faction that exists on the idea that the multiverse is nothing but chaotic whimsy and chance, so the true way to experience life is to give yourself over to whim and chaos.
 * Chaotic Stupid: Not technically necessary, but there is a tendency for people to play the faction this way. Probably because the descriptions of the faction tend to make them sound like they are this way.
 * Mad Artist: Many of the not-as-stupid members qualify. The Painter is a teifling member who has become a celebrity of sorts for her large and vivid murals, while the Gate Town of Xaos and Limbo itself (where they have a strong presence) is home to many artists, some of which specialize in Chaos Shaping.
 * Player Headquarters: A rare case of an organization who averts this. They call the Hive their headquarters, but don't have a specific building to meet in. Members usually light special torches that burn with violet fire for when they want to organize and event, and members are told to look for those.