Planescape/Characters

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


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: Originally was (probably) this to Aoskar, the God of Portals, who tried to usurp her rule over Sigil, but seeing as she killed him he's no longer a threat (again, probably.) Could also possibly be considered this to Vecna.
  • Ascended Demon: One common theory is that she is a "reformed" Abyssal Lord.
  • 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!
  • Cruel Mercy: In the original Planescape, she was notorious for killing or mazing people who simply annoyed her, say if they spoke to her or even got in her way. In 5th Edition, she's slightly more merciful - for such actions, she gives the offender a Death Glare that causes horrible pain and reduces his hit points to 1; again, no saving throw allowed. (Still pretty brutal, but not lethal.) If that person doesn't get the hint, she will not show mercy a second time.
  • 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.
  • Genius Loci: A common theory is that Sigil is itself a living entity and that she is an avatar of the city itself.
  • 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".
  • Reality Warper: She has complete physical control over Sigil, including the weather and its multitude of portals.
  • 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".
  • To Win Without Fighting: As stated in the 5th Edition, there have been times in Sigil's history where the rivalry between Factions turns into open conflict, and is such that killing or imprisoning the leaders just isn't going to work. When that happens, the Lady simply closes every portal in the city, placing it under a quarantine. Eventually, the inability to import or export goods and dispose of garbage convinces the offenders to settle their differences and get along.
  • The Voiceless: The Lady absolutely never speaks, ever. There 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.
  • 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.

  • 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.
  • Arch Enemies: To illithids, naturally; while the githzeri share this enimity, having descended from the same race, they are also the githyanki's enemies.
  • 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.
  • Deal with the Devil: Almost everyone believes Gith made a deal like this with Tiamat, promising eternal servitude for an alliance between her people and red dragons. They're almost correct. Tiamat is more like a vassal to the Archdevil she truly made the deal with, Dispater, who still retains her soul trapped in a gemstone as a trophy.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • The Hunter: Both they and the githzerai have special bands of warriors called rrakkma, who leave their planar fortresses on missions where they are not allowed to come back until they have slain a number of illithds equal to ten times the number of the band. (Most at least try to kill far more.) It's dangerous work, but among their own people, successful rrakkma are the most admired and most revered.
  • 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 Genetics: The Duthka'gith are a mutant offshoot of the githyanki, believed to be a result of Gith's agreement with Tiamat. Supposedly, Tiamat's fiendish red consort Ephelomon "corrupted" githyanki eggs to create these monstrosities. (Exactly what the process entails is likely one of those things You Do Not Want To Know about them.) The duthka'gith are stronger, faster, tougher and smarter than “regular” githyanki, and combine the githyanki's propensity for cruelty and love of violence with all the arrogance of dragons. As might be expected, regular githyanki don’t like them at all, and their mere existence is one of many reasons for discontent towards Vlaakith CLVI.
  • 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.
  • Nothing but Skin and Bones: Githyanki are often portrayed as incredibly thin, and even when they aren't, they tend to be very lean. Regardless, despite this deformity, they are deceptively strong.
  • Promoted to Playable: Stat rules for githyanki PCs was given in 5th Edition's Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse.
  • Psychic Powers: All githyanki possess potent psionic abilities, a result of the mutations they underwent at illithid hands.
  • Riddle for the Ages: The illithids are one of the most feared and reviled races in existence. They were able to build entire planets and supposedly created the deity Ilsensine via collaborative psionic power. Legend states that their world-spanning empire became so powerful that the two sides of the Blood War considered a truce for mutual defense against them. Thus, exactly how a slave uprising managed to topple them is a mystery even modern githyanki do not know. Maybe they took advantage of a schism among their masters, maybe they discovered some hidden weakness, but however it happened, such knowledge has been lost in their decent into debauchery and tyranny.
  • 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.
  • Simple Yet Awesome: Modron armor (introduced in Planes of Law, which also provided information for Rogue Modron PCs) is quite easy to make, the blacksmith simply having to wield sheets of metal to the modron's body.

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.
  • The Chessmaster: Rilmani aren't exactly incapable of fighting or leading armies, and they have done both at times, but they rarely intervene directly in their quest to preserve the Balance, usually giving advice and counsel to whatever side is at a disadvantage in the conflict.
  • Heel Face Revolving Door: A rilmani's only true loyalty is to the Balance itself, and will only aid or oppose mortals if doing so will aid it in its goals. Thus, a rilmani could be helping The Good King for several years, and then aiding that King's tyrannical enemy later.
  • Magical Library: They have one of the largest libraries in the cosmos in the city of Sum of All, although it was actually built and collected by a member of another race called the kamerel who inhabited the city before them. The kamerel who built it used mirror-themed magic to create a self-perpetuating (as opposed to permanent) enchantment that could read and reproduce every written work written throughout the planes and add it to the library. Further, beneath her Bindery, as she called it, she built an infinite repository through self-reflected extradimensional mirrors to hold these innumerous tomes as they were produced. Unfortunately, her fellow kamerel were a xenophobic race, who saw this as a blasphemy; they arrested, tried, and executed her for doing so. They couldn't destroy the library (her enchantments continually repaired it when they tried) so they sealed up the library, calling it Timaresh: in their tongue, the Collection of Hated Lore. The library continued doing its job of collecting knowledge even while bricked up, and when the rilmani kicked the kamerel out, they used it for their benefit. Unfortunately, only rilmani are allowed to use it - period, so even the rare visitors to Sum of All aren't likely to make use of Timaresh.
  • Mysterious Backer: Some believe the true ruler of the rilmani is a godlike being called Center-of-All, although the only evidence of this is the existence of the cambion Rule-of-Three and the deva Unity-of-Rings; it makes sense there would be a third being who represents the third axiom of the multiverse, but should Center-of-All exist, nobody has ever reported seeing him.
  • Nice Hat: All of the rilmani in the Planescape Monster Manual have a hood-like hat with spires or spikes on the forehead, except the ferrumachs, who have Cool Helmets with a similar design. One can assume this is a popular rilmani style.
  • 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.
  • Theme Naming: Each rilmani subrace has a name that references a metal that is important in alchemy: the more valuable the metal, the more powerful and influential the rilmani is:
    • Plumach: Lead. Commoners among rilmani, have a reputation as craftsmen and hard workers.
    • Ferrumach: Iron. Soldiers in rilmani armies.
    • Cuprilach: Copper. Spies and assassins tasked with eliminating individuals who threaten the Balance
    • Argenach: Silver. Leaders who supervise and orchestrate projects on the Material Plane.
    • Abiorach: Mercury [1] Maintain Balance between elemental beings.
    • Aurumach: Gold. Very powerful beings who are the de facto leaders of the rilmani.
      • Many fans note that there is room for a seventh type of rilmani to represent Tin (stanach?) but there has never been such a rilmani canon-wise.

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.

  • Chaos Is Evil: Most slaadi are simply Chaotic, but Death Slaadi and many Grey Slaadi are evil corruptions of pure Chaos.
  • 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.
  • Informed Ability: These creatures are supposed to be living embodiments of Chaos. Thing is, as a race, they have little individuality at all, having only five subspecies, all of which look like big, humanoid frogs, and all of them are predators driven solely by survival and hunger. (Compared to say, demons, another Chaotic planar species, which has dozens of known subspecies and a wide variety of bodily forms, shapes, and personalities.) Even devils and modrons (both Lawful planar races) show more variety in form and function and less conformity than the slaadi do.
  • Klingon Promotion: In order to become a Death Slaad, a Grey Slaad has to eat another Death Slaad.
    • Stupid Evil: ...which means, seeing as a Grey Slaad is almost always a servant (or The Dragon) to a Death Slaad, and each Death Slaad was once a Grey Slaad itself (possibly gaining its promotion by killing and devouring its boss) one gets the idea that they aren't very bright.
  • 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: Zigzagged. The lowest ranking Yugoloth is actually stronger than the next rank. Those who realize this get singled out as potential candidates for promotion. However, ultraloths (the leaders of the race) are indeed far stronger than any of their subordinates.
  • Chessmaster: Many believe they are controlling and manipulating the Blood War as some grand experiment to determine what type of Evil is superior.
  • 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 (the Tower of Incarnate Pain), 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.
  • Hidden Agenda Villain: While most of them have the deserved reputation of greedy mercenaries, many believe their leaders are up to something bigger. The most likely theory is they're encouraging the Blood War to see which specific type of Evil is superior.
  • Hidden Villain: The General of Gehenna is the de facto ruler of the yugoloths. Via the yugoloths' own accounts (which are thus subject to scrutiny) the General was the first yugoloth to become an ultraloth, and may have had a hand in the below-referenced purging. Supposedly, he rules from a mobile fortress that creeps across all four layers of Gehenna, where he encourages and maintains the Blood War as some sort of grand experiment in Evil.
  • Narcissist: Lets put it this way, in the Splat book Hellbound the Blood War, the editor references the yugoloth creation myth The Book of Derelict Magicks, which is written by a yugoloth author and thus (as the editor warns) of debatable veracity. After only six paragraphs, the editor adds a footnote saying, "At this point, the text digresses on the merits of the yugoloth race, returning to its original focus hundreds of pages late." Whether or not these guys truly are the ultimate Chessmasters, they certainly believe they are.
  • 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.
  • No Mouth: The highest ranking Yugoloths, the Ultroloths, don't have mouths and communicate solely by telepathy.
  • Plaguemaster: The Oinoloth (the powerful Yugoloth that currently rules the tower of Khin-Oin) can control the plagues of the Grey Waste.
  • Proud Merchant Race: Their opinion of themselves.
    • Snake Oil Salesmen: Everyone else's opinion of them, including most of their regular customers. Nobody likes dealing with them and nobody trusts them.
  • Shadow Dictator: The General of Gehenna is rumored to dwell in a mobile fortress that crawls over Gehenna like a spider, but this is only conjecture. Even most ultraloths have never actually seen him, although many search for him in hopes of becoming his apprentice.
  • 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.

Tropes Common to All of Them

  • Authority Equals Asskicking: With the exception of the Guvners, all Factols are moderate to high-level NPCs.
  • Law Versus Chaos: Factions rarely care about Good and Evil, but some do have ethical Alignment requirements. Factions of the opposing Alignments are viewed as foes.
  • Player Headquarters: One benefit to belonging to a Faction is that you have other members to turn to. Each of them had a headquarters in Sigil where a member could do research, buy supplies at a discount, hear rumors, etc, so long as they were in good standing.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Double-crossing your own Faction is a good way to become a pariah in Sigil; even Factions regarded as their enemies rarely trust such turncoats.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: By varying degrees of "extreme", all of them are very committed to one idea, and will often fight to uphold it.

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.

  • 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.
    • The same can be said of the group's two founders, Dunn and Ciro. Both were former clerics (Dunn to Poseidon, Ciro to Loki) both had lost everything as a result, and both went to the Shattered Temple on the same day to rant about how much they wished the gods they once followed would be as dead as Asokar. A misunderstanding caused an argument, which led to a fight, which led to an alliance between the two, and six months later, the Athar had been founded.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Player Headquarters: In Sigil, the Athar made their home in the Shattered Temple, which belonged to Asokar the God of Portals before he was done in and kicked out of Sigil by the Lady. They see the rotting, crumbling structure as a visual aid of their philosophy, as it proves gods are not invulnerable and indestructible. They also have a fortress in the Astral near the God-Isles, where they point to the Dead Gods as a similar aid.
  • Rage Against the Heavens: Some of the morally questionable (and downright evil) members have motives like this. For example, Saure is one of the gautiere, a race believed to have been betrayed by their patron deity and now possessing a hatred of all gods. Saure herself has become a grave robber as a result, defiling tombs and stealing from corpses just to give the proverbial finger to those who hold funeral rites sacred.

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.

  • Apocalypse How: They believe everyone is being tested, even the gods, and when everyone passes the tests, the mulitiverse will end.
  • 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.
  • Player Headquarters: In Sigil, they call the Foundry home, as it is the symbolic forge of the planes.
  • Reincarnation: Most of them believe this happens to mortals who fail the tests, again, much like the concept of Nirvana.
  • 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.
  • Player Headquarters: The Gatehouse, a place symbolic of hopelessness and madness.
  • Riddle for the Ages: The Gatehouse may have been intended as a jail or cage for something in the past, seeing as the portcullis bars that make up the entrance can theoretically be lifted; not even a titan is strong enough to actually do so. This doesn't block entry for anyone, as the spaces between the bars are about ten feet wide. Whatever it was meant to hold is a mystery, which the Bleakers are too apathetic to look into.
  • 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 at present 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.

  • Apocalypse How: All the Doomguard believe the fate of the multiverse is complete and utter destruction. Some want to help it along and a small few think it's happening too fast, but most think it's progressing fine as it is.
  • 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.
  • Player Headquarters: The Armory, where they control the production and distribution of Sigil's armor and weapons, symbols of war and strife. They also have four other strongholds, one on each of the four Negative Quasi-Elemental Planes.
  • 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. She 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.
  • Player Headquarters: The Mortuary, where they oversaw duties related to collecting and disposing of corpses, including funerals. Sigil has no room for cemeteries, so the Mortuary has hundreds of portals leading to such places on Prime worlds. Many, however, lead to crematoriums, so the place isn't very safe for travel.
  • 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.
  • Intimidating Revenue Service: Fantasy counterpart example; their position didn't make them many friends.
  • Might Makes Right: The fundamental core of their philosophy; take what you can, and to the hells with everybody else.
  • Player Headquarters: Until the Faction War, they controlled the Hall of Records. They also have a fortress in Ysgard.
  • 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.
  • Smug Snake: Rowan Darkwood; he thought he could take Sigil itself and boy, was he ridiculously wrong.
  • 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.

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.
  • Dead All Along: Haskar was long-rumored to be a petitioner, and the Faction War confirmed it.
  • Honor Before Reason: A Guvner PC can never knowingly and willingly break a law, no matter how much he disagrees with it. He can search for an exploit any loophole in a law to avoid it, but never blatantly break it.
  • 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.
    • Also, in Faction War, when Haskar was publicly accused of being a petitioner (which he was, by the way) he did not confirm nor deny it, claiming there was no law that said a petitioner couldn't be Factol. Be that as it may, both the Harmonium and Mercykillers found the idea of a dead person leading the Guvners to be unsettling, and the relationshop between the three Factions was damaged as a result.
  • Non-Action Guy: Haskar had no levels in any class, making him the only Factol in Sigil with this designation.[2] The reason being, he was a Petitioner; they are almost always zero-Level.
  • 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.
  • Only Sane Group: They are often the voice of reason whenever debate between other Factions turns ugly.
  • Player Headquarters: The City Courts, where they preside as judges and counsels. It has the best library in Sigil, a benefit to being a member. There is also the Fortress of Disciplined Enlightenment in Mechanus, where they currently reside.
  • 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.
  • Screw the Money, I Have Rules: "Money talks" in Sigil, but the Guvners are an exception; only evil members can be bribed.
  • 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.
  • Odd Friendship: Probably the only group who gets along well with the Fated, who admire their staunch focus on the individual.
  • Player Headquarters: The closest they have to one is the Grand Bazaar, an open-air market in the heart of the Market Ward. Indep PCs can likely haggle for supplies better here than anyone else.
  • 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.
  • Epic Fail: Their first sojourn into the Outer Planes was the War of Iron, was about 450 years before current continuity. In their efforts to eradicate Chaos, an army of a million Ortho soldiers invaded the Caverns of the Skull, Kali's realm in the Abyss. Their ignorance and complete misunderstanding of what they were up against led them to be slaughtered in under a day. Still, one good thing - for them - came out of it, as the handful of survivors escaped via a portal that led to them discovering Sigil, and the planar branch of the Faction was founded.
  • The Evils of Free Will: They pretty much succeeded in imposing such a policy on Ortho, imposing conformity to achieve peace. Unfortunately, those who have actually visited Ortho find it mind-crushingly dull. And trying to impose the same idea on a wider scale has been a disaster, as the incident on Nemausus proved.
  • The Federation: Easily the largest faction. Before the Faction War, there were about a million members in Sigil, a couple million in the Outlands, about five million in Arcadia (with a few stragglers in Nemausus) and a few thousand in the Lawful Gate-Towns. Oh, and the whole population of a Prime world, of course. The biggest benefit of being in the Harmonium is you're never far from a fellow member.
  • 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.
  • Player Headquarters: The City Barracks, giving them the position of City Watch. Players who join this faction can often get discounts on training upon leveling up, assuming that optional rule is used.
  • 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.

  • 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. Unfortunately, the events of Faction War caused the Wyrm to break free, and it was eventually slain in the conflict.
  • 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 than the Harmonium; the Lawful Evil side of the Mercykillers holds far more sway over the faction than it does in the Harmonium.
  • 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 Jailer: Being in charge of the Prison pretty much means they control Sigil's correction system.
  • Player Headquarters: The Prison, and PCs are rarely allowed to see and speak to prisoners unless they are members.
  • Psycho Supporter: Factol Alisohn Nilesia was essentially this for Fated Factol Rowan Darkwood before his betrayal; she had agreed to his We Can Rule Sigil Together offer not only because she was madly in love with him, but also because she was insane enough to believe that current ruler The Lady of Pain wished to be executed by her as punishment for her countless crimes.

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. In fact, the benefit one gets from joining the Revolutionary League is that you can pose as a member of any other faction without raising suspicion. This does not gain an Anarchist any magical abilities or those that would require training (such as a Xaositect's babble or a Cipher's initiative bonus), but they can benefit from abilities related to position or title, including access to the faction's headquarters. 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.
  • Player Headquarters: Given their goals, they don't have a central headquarters in Sigil, but any Anarchist worth his salt knows a few safe-houses where members are welcome.
  • 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.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Most members are not big fans of the Scratcher, an insane Serial Killer who inhabits the Clerk's Ward, who claims to be a Signer but has a perverted view of their philosophy. He believes he physically is the universe, and "grooms" himself by killing people and destroying buildings. More lucid Signers have placed a bounty on his head.
  • 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.
  • Player Headquarters: The Hall of Speakers, where the Factols of all Factions gather for debates and lawmaking sessions. Or rather, they try to. Debates usually devolve into arguments. Anyone with a message who desires an audience can find a podium at the Hall, but unless you're a member, the waiting list is months long.
  • 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.
  • Player Headquarters: The Civic Festhall, the best source of entertainment in Sigil. Not only does it have theaters, opera halls, and the like, but it has the Public Sensorium, where you can experience almost anything via Sensory Stones, for a price. PC Sensates can do this for free, and can also donate such experiences for others to enjoy. For example, a lowly baker could use it to experience the thrill a swashbuckler had when fighting bloodthirsty pirates; the place has an extensive library.
  • 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. Even as late as 5th Edition, the sourcebook Tasha's Cauldron of Everything shows that Rhys is still around, running her organization as a guild.
  • 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.
  • Player Headquarters: The Great Gymnasium, a combination spa/training facility where one can relax both their body and mind.

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.
  • Noodle Incident: Lots of them. It's pointless to detail the history of this group efficiently, but some things stand out, like the 12-Minute Truce, where they were allies of every other Faction for exactly 12 minutes, or the time one of them assassinated the then-Factol of the Harmonium by hitting him over the head with an hourglass.
  • Older Than They Think: in-Universe example. The Xaositcts seem like a relatively young Faction, but there have been similar groups around for a long time, like the Xaosophiles, the Discordant Opposition, the Ochlocrats, and groups with even sillier names. Given their affinity with Chaos, it's very likely they've just changed the name several times over the centuries when their leaders get bored.
  • 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 an event, and members are told to look for those.
  • The Unintelligible: The thing Xaositects are best known for (aside from being annoying) is their Scramblespeak, a weird type of jargon where the they mix up the words of their sentences in a way that only other Xaositechs can decipher.
  • Words Can Break My Bones: High-level Xaositects can use their Scramblespeak as a weapon, to confuse, disorient, and even physically harm their foes.

Notable Residents of Sigil

Residents of the Cage, intended to serve as antagonists, allies, or either.

A'kin the Friendly Fiend
"Beware of fiends bearing gifts."
—Message on the wall of the Parted Veil Bookshop

A cheerful and apparently good-natured male arcanoloth who runs a magic item shop known as the Friendly Fiend.

  • Affably Evil: Whether he's truly faking it or not, nobody knows, but he still remains by far, the most courteous and approachable of yugoloths, a race regarded as greedy and amoral merchants at worst and chessmaster orchestrators of the Blood War at best.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: In-Universe; everybody's got their own suspicion as to why he acts the way he does, save for the fact that Cagers are too cynical to believe he might legitimately be redeemed. Some even say he goes on secret rampages of destruction in order to vent his pent-up evilness after acting so nice in public.
  • Ascended Demon : Seemingly; he acts with incredible friendliness, decorum, courtesy and even small acts of charity... in other words, more like a celestial than a stereotypical fiend. No Cager really buys it, however.
  • Bazaar of the Bizarre: The store he runs is like this. Surprisingly, many powerful magical items used by Shemeshka have come from here, which only further muddles the waters about what their relationship is.
  • Noble Fugitive: Fugitive, definitely. He became a fugitive by writing The Factol's Manifesto. He claimed to have only good intentions in mind, to expose the corruption of the factions, but the faction leaders, rather understandably, thought otherwise. Whether he truly was acting for the greater good by exposing the inner workings of the factions is anybody's guess.
  • The Rival: To Shemeshka, but to what extent is not known; they may be Friendly Enemies, Arch Enemies, somewhere in between, or may even shift between the two. What is known is, despite their apparent enmity, they seem to cooperate at times, many of the powerful magical items Shemeshka uses coming from A'kin's store. The biggest indication was in the forward to The Factol's Manifesto, where A'kin (although he didn't reveal himself then) said that Shemeshka and her organization was his biggest source of information for the book, but she eventually double-crossed him and leaked an advance copy to the Mercykillers, thus making him a fugitive.
  • Troll: In Faction War, he clues the PCs in on Shemeska's plan to obtain the Sigil Spell, his motive being that he enjoys seeing Shemeska's plans fail.

Autochon the Bellringer
"I must have... an appointment."
—Autochron at the Other Place spa.

A human and the head of Sigil's foremost courier service, the tale of Authochon is a tale of misery and betrayal, one of many that can be laid at the feet of Shemeshka the Marauder. As his success led to growing attacks upon his couriers, stealing or destroying goods, disrupting messages and even killing them, he eventually sought the Arcanaloth's help. She suggested he go to the fearful Temple of the Abyss, bartering with the fiend-priests there for protection for his workers. Autochon did as told, and met Noxana the Unwilling, a female tiefling priestess — and a fellow member of the Free League. It was love at first sight, and although the contract was struck, promising protection for Autochon's couriers in exchange for always carrying the Temple's missives and goods for free, the two secretly continued to meet for trysts. Unfortunately for Autochon, their love was discovered by a spy, who reported the rendezvous to Noshteroth of the Umber Scales, tiefling high priest of the Temple. Whether he was Noxana's father, lover or both, he flew into a jealous rage and cursed Autochon with the Bells of Bedlam, a punishment normally reserved for those who broke faith. After three days, on the brink of madness, Autochon pleaded with Shemeshka for mercy; the Arcanaloth fitted him in enchanted armor that managed to dull the worst of his curse, and he has been her slave ever since.

  • 24-Hour Armor: His trademark jingling armor has to be worn at all times, because it's only when he's sealed into it that he has any relief from the Bells of Baphomet curse affecting him.
  • Curse: The Bells of Baphomet, which means he incessantly hears the clamoring of extremely loud bells at all times, without it ever ceasing. It's enough to drive him mad — and worse, his special armor can't muffle it entirely, it just mitigates the worst of it, giving him some ability to sleep and retain a tenuous grip on sanity.
  • Deal with the Devil: A rare case where such a deal ends when a "devil" with higher authority decides to renege on the deal, but then, demons are chaotic.
  • Information Broker: Or rather, head of a guild of them, which makes him one of Shemeska's most useful pawns.
  • Nerd in Evil's Helmet: A variation, in that people expect him to be hideous-looking to fit his fiendish-looking armor, but the reality is that he's quite handsome.
  • Rags to Riches: Started working as a courier as a child, much like hundreds of other urchins in the Cage, and would eventually become head of the most guild in Sigil. Sadly for him, he just didn't know when to stop.
  • Verbal Tic: Every sentence he speaks starts with "I must have"; it's something he's been doing since he first started his business, and arguably enforces his drive and authoritative nature. Ironically, it sounds more fitting for a member of the Fated than one of the Free League.

Black Marian
Feathers ain't the only things those pigeons drop in that water.
—A wise-guy refusing Marian's offer.

A human priestess of Bragi and a member of the Believers of the Source, Black Marian tends to the fabulous Singing Fountain in the Lady's Ward, where in exchange for donations of jink, she will listen to the way the music changes in response to someone drinking from it and use that as a way to divine that donor's future.

  • Ambiguously Human: While her in-game write up marks her as human, many other Cage residents doubt it. Her voice and hauntingly hypnotic eyes seem bewitching and enchanting to a listener, and some believe it's supernatural in nature. Some believe she's actually an embodiment of the Norns, but the true "secret" to this is her past life as a delphon.
  • Badass Pacifist: She abhors fighting, but if you try it, you'll regret it. If someone provokes her at the Fountain, her admirers will likely take issue, and the mace of disruption she keeps isn't for show.
  • Friendly Rival: For lack of a better term, her relationship with Harys Hatchis; the human wants to recruit her as an advertising agent for his business, but Marian refuses, as she not only finds the idea offensive to her religious beliefs, but also finds him a discordant figure who interferes with her connection to the Singing Fountain.
  • Good Samaritan: Despite being one of the Godsmen, Marian has a view much like the Ring-Givers; she donates most of the funds she gets from donations to soup kitchens in the Hive where she also devotes much of her time. She's also gained a lot of volunteers via tending the Fountain.
  • Reincarnation: Part of the reason for Black Marian's unique ability to divine with the Singing Fountain stems from a strong spiritual connection to her last life. Before she was a human, she was a delphon, a magical, musical, predatory fish from the plane of Oceanus more commonly known as a "songshark".
  • Unknown Rival: Autochon regards Marian as competition, and because she is non-profit, her "business" can't be bankrupted, something he hates. (In truth, he wants her to work for him, but he'd never admit it.) As a result, he has often tried to spread covert slander and, in one notorious incident, sabotaged the fountain with feathers of fiendish scavenger birds from the Outlands simply to try scare her. It didn't work.

Kesto Brighteyes
"Please do not wipe feet on books."
—Sign in the Parted Veil

A Bytopian gnome illusionist who, after an accidental trip to the Astral Plane exposed him to the corpses of slain Powers, lost all faith in deities. Now a member of the Athar, he runs the Parted Veil; a bookshop in the Lower Ward literally made from books, where he offers knowledge freely to all and can get in just about any book that you want. And we do mean any.

  • Badass Grandpa: He's 298 years old, but he's also a level 12 Illusionist, so picking a fight isn't necessarily a smart thing to do. Especially as his best friend Sir Cleve, a paladin turned Bodak who retains his good soul, is always watching out for his little buddy.
  • Badass Bookworm: He's read most of his stock and often lectures at the Shattered Temple, proving his "bookworm" status, but his skills as a high-level wizard contributes the badass part.
  • Big Guy, Little Guy: When with Cleve, who is about seven feet tall, Kesto is the Little Guy.
  • Cool Old Guy: He's almost three centuries old, but still a wise-cracking, knowledge-seeking, free-thinking fellow who wants others to just be the best people they can possibly be.
  • Magic Librarian: He owns the Parted Veil, a Magical Library in the Lower Ward with crazy architecture; shelves of books even make up the floor. Unlike most places in the city that deal in information, it isn't Faction-specific.
  • Master of Illusion: Well, "master" is pushing it, even if 12th level out of 20 is nothing to sneeze at, but Illusion is his specialty as a wizard, so he can really scramble your brains if you push him too far.
  • My Greatest Failure: He was the one who summoned Saure out of Carceri, and he's aghast at the way the Athar have taken to using her as a weapon against religious people. He constantly sends missives to Factol Terrence, pleading with him to put an official stop to this dehumanizing treatment of Saure.
  • Our Gnomes Are Weirder: Actually, he's a lot less reckless than the typical gnome, but still eccentric. His best friend is an undead paladin who can kill people with a look and he lives in a building where the floor, walls and roof are made out of filled bookshelves. That ain't exactly normal.

Cirily
"Primes have a whole plane, must they have our city too?
—Cirily

A firre eladrin who is infamous throughout Sigil for her efforts to drum up support for the Planarists, hoping to push her hatemongering creed from a mere Sect to a full-fledged Faction. It's possible she may be either an ally of Koe, and the whole anti-Prime screed is just a tool she's using to help leverage his plans of promoting the fiends to destroy each other by supplying them with weapons. Then again, she might be a dupe of Koe's whose antics, although sincerely believed, are ultimately just a tool that Koe is using to obfuscate his plans.

  • Everyone Has Standards: Sigil may be full of arrogant fools who dismiss the Prime, but even so, Cirily's efforts to drum up outright racism aren't doing very well.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Eladrins as a whole don't do "nice" when dealing with foes, but Cirily pushes the limits even further with her controversial ideas.
  • Fantastic Racism: Is the founder of the Planarists, a small and verbal Sigil-focused Sect dedicated to expelling all Primes from Sigil and the Outer Planes.
  • Incendiary Exponent: Like all firres, Cirily can transform between the form of an angelic elf and a sentient ball of fire.
  • Odd Friendship: With Tripicus, maybe. The two (and Koe) are partners in the plot to arm the fiends and keep them at each others' throats, but his view of Primes directly opposes hers. The two seem to have at least some mutual respect towards each other.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Much like Koe, she feels the Blood War is a Necessarily Evil, and seeks to prolong it to keep the fiends only fighting each other.

Wooly Cupgrass
"I've seen that berk swallow enough bebelith venom to lay low ten balors and just smile."
—Kyle.

A bariaur Sensate and alchemist, Wooly is famous for his bizarre method of testing every possible potion, oil, scent or poison a person could hope to identify: he drinks it. In fact, he may end up drinking the entire sample, which makes using him to identify such things rather risky. Still, the novelty of his methods keeps customers coming, and Wooly himself certainly wants to keep going; he's utterly addicted to his bizarre drinking habit.

  • Acquired Poison Immunity: Zigzagged. Consuming countless toxins, alchemical concoctions and magical potions has made Wooly extremely resistant to their effects — however, he's not totally resistant, and occasionally succumbs to whatever he's drunk, especially if it's new to him.
  • Alchemy Is Magic: He's so skilled at alchemy that he can brew up magical potions, ointments, perfumes and so forth. One could even argue it's fitting to change his class from Apothecary to Eremitenote .
  • The Alcoholic: A variant in that he's addicted to consuming alchemical and magical potions, rather than mere booze, but the trope otherwise stands. It's well known that a risk you take from giving him a taste test is that he may chug the lot right there and then.
  • The Dandy: Bariaurs tend to be vain and foppish anyway, but Wooly takes it to an extreme even by their standards. He smothers himself in powders and oils meant to nullify his natural musk (to the point most people think he stinks more now than he did before) and shears his upper body down to the skin to look more fashionable.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: According to Uncaged: Faces of Sigil, Wooly was once an aspiring apothecary for his tribe on the Outlands, but an attempt to cure the chieftain's sick daughter with one of his own potions killed her because he accidentally used spoiled ingredients. He started testing his potions on himself after that, but turned into an addict and began guzzling all of his own creations. Eventually, it got so bad that his tribe kicked him out, and he came to Sigil because he knew he couldn't make it as part of a flock anymore.
  • Death Seeker: It's subtly implied that guilt over the death of the chieftain's daughter means there's a part of Wooly that wants to die in atonement.
  • Professor Guinea Pig: His addiction to guzzling potions and ointments stems from his habit of taste-testing his own potions first, to make sure they work.

Dihek'nlarr
"You know, I've heard the Lady ain't so tough."
—Dihek'nlarr to a prospective mark.

A female githyanki who wants to find the secrets to unraveling the mazes of the Lady of Pain, a process she is pursuing by manipulating the arrogant and foolish into challenging the Lady and getting themselves mazed. Then, through some unknown process — believed to stem from her training as a hr'a'cknir — she enters the resultant maze from its gate in Sigil, maps it out, and then follows her own trail back.

  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Despite being described as The Charmer, she's only got 7 points in Charisma. For the uninitiated, that's a point below the bare minimum average Charisma score, meaning she gets a -1 penalty to her skill rolls at persuading people. Of course, she can cast the Charm Person spell, which does help.
  • Magic Knight: She's a multiclassed Fighter/Wizard under the AD&D ruleset, with 7 levels in Fighter and 4 in Wizard.
  • Poisonous Friend: She uses charm, flattery and false pretenses of friendship, all to goad people into getting themselves mazed.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: It's generally believed that if she finds the victim she got mazed, she kills them.
  • Wanted Poster: How her description is presented in Uncaged: Faces of Sigil, seeing as the Mercykillers are after her.

Adamok Ebon
"I'd sure hate to be one of her targets."
—Overheard at the Fat Candle pub

An enigmatic female bladeling, Adamok used to hunt rust dragons that bedeviled the bladeling city of Zoronor; when clerics created spells that shielded her people from the rust dragons' breath, she was no longer necessary. Instead, she moved to Sigil, where she has since pursued a living as a hunter, a guide, a domesticator of beasts and, it is rumored, an assassin. She charges very little for such activities, just enough to cover her room and board; all she wants is to live an essential, dangerous life.

  • Egomaniac Hunter: A variant; Adamok isn't the boastful type by any measure, but she lives to hunt. It's all she thinks about, and all she cares about.
  • Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Played with; Adamok prefers the most dangerous quarry she can go after, but mere humanoids are pretty low down on her measure. She's more likely to hunt the petitioners of the Beastlands, who combine the physical might of animals with the intelligence of humans, or to go after magical creatures like illithids, gehreleths, beholders and su-monsters.
  • Religious Bruiser: According to her official statblock for AD&D, she's a multiclassed Fighter/Cleric (level 6 and level 5, respectively), although which god she worships is unknown.

Estavan
"Don't worry, you can pay me back later."
—Promise made by Estavan to a gullible customer.

An ogre mage, and head of the Planar Trade Consortium, Estavan is the deal-maker and deal-breaker of commerce in Sigil.

  • Cruel Mercy: If someone has the nerve to pick a fight with him, he'll often refrain from using lethal force once he proves he can, offering mercy in exchange for a "favor" to be paid later.
  • Genius Bruiser: He's usually a polite and cultured individual, and handles the PTC without any visible aid, but je's more than capable if someone picks a fight, unleashing the ferocity befitting of his kind with powerful evocation magic and his magical naganita.
  • Faux Affably Evil: A courteous and generous businessman on the surface towards anyone who deals with him "fairly" (that is, according to his rules), Estavan shows absolutely no mercy towards anyone who does not.
  • Intrepid Merchant: Need a wyvern egg? Give Estavan a day, he'll get it. An actual dragon egg? That one might take a week, but he'll get it. Estavan has yet to disappoint a customer, so long as they can meet his price.
  • Neat Freak: He's obsessed with his appearance, constantly smoothing his robe, stroking his tusks, and checking his fingernails.
  • Oddly Small Organization: As far as is known, Estavan is the only actual member of the PTC, which deals in trade over a multitude of worlds, dimensions, and planes.
  • Rules Lawyer: He's a Guvner, so it comes with the position, and even more than the typical Guvner, he often manipulates the law to suit his own end.
  • Unknown Rival: To Zarada, possibly the only Cager willing and able to blatantly refuse to deal with him on anything. Estavan has wanted her to support the PTC, but won't even consider working with her as equals, and Zarada flat-out rejects his attempts at threats or bribery. Of course, unlike most Cagers, she has enough wealth and power to do so.

Farrow
" I just... don't feel myself today."
—Farrow, on a typical day

A Shadow Elf from the world of Mystara , Farrow is a former member of the dreaded Eyes of the Serpent; a secret society of thieves, spies, saboteurs and assassins dedicated to protecting their race at all cost. When a mission went wrong in Glantri, he was hurled through a Gate into Sigil, where he managed to survive and ultimately came to join the Revolutionary League. Unfortunately for him, he ended up falling under the sway of Shemeshka the Marauder, who gave him a Ring of Disguise and ordered him to infiltrate every faction at the same time. The result was too much for the elf's mind, and it catastrophically splintered; each of his disguises became its own separate personality, with poor Farrow sharing his body with them whenever the right circumstances are triggered.

  • Ambiguous Gender: His "core" personality was originally male, but 5th Edition leaves this ambiguous, always referring to the core with neutral pronounds. The genders of the other personalities are clearly stated, some are male, some are female.
  • Carry a Big Stick: His Weapon of Choice is a footman's mace +5; conveniently a Simple Weapon, it can be used by any Class, meaning all 15 of his personalities can use it with ease.
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Farrow's diverse personalities have different races and classes; somehow he gains the extraordinary and even supernatural abilities of whatever race and class that personality is, including spellcasting. Even Shemeska has no idea why that is, although Sigil is indeed a place where ideas and beliefs are strong.
  • Gone Horribly Right: The combination of Farrow's special "method acting" technique for infiltration and his Ring of Disguise ended up turning him into a gestalt of different beings.
  • Involuntary Shapeshifting: Farrow can no longer deliberately use his magical ring's shapeshifting power, and instead it only works to transform his body into the guise of whichever persona is currently dominant.
  • Mind Hive: Each of Farrow's 15 personas (the original and 14 others) is a truly independent sentience in its own right, which means it would take a Wish to cure him — or to separate them.
  • Mysterious Backer: He is this to the players in the 5th Edition epic adventure Turn of Fortune's Wheel, as an emissary to Shemeska (who also plays a major role).
  • Race Lift: In 5th Edition, he is changed from Shadow Elf to Shadar-Kai.
  • Space Whale Aesop: Faces of Sigil claims that Farrow is a good example of how dangerous making deals with fiends can be. All he really did was work for Shemeska, and it shattered his mind into pieces.
  • Split Personality: One of the worst and strangest cases ever. Even Shemeska has no idea how it happened.

Fell
"That dabus is treading on mighty shaky grounds."
—Shopper in the Market Ward

A mysterious "fallen Dabus", supposedly disowned by the Lady of Pain for becoming a priest of the dead god Aoskar — indeed, it's commonly whispered that it was his conversion to Aoskar that prompted the Lady to move against him and destroy him. He now runs a tattoo business and is a member of the Sign of One faction. Fell is also an NPC in Planescape: Torment.

  • Black Sheep: Fell is easy to tell from the typical Dabus. Not only does he not float like they do, he's far more friendly and sociable. Most Dabus don't acknowledge the presence of other beings at all, but Fell will often wave or smile to greet a passersby. Unfortunately for him, most folk who know about his past try to avoid him if possible.
  • Broken Angel: He's a fallen Dabus, disowned by the Lady of Pain, unable to float.
  • Doom Magnet: Not really, but most residents of Sigil are afraid he might turn into one. After all, he double-crossed the Lady, and it's very possible she might just be biding her time. People tend to avoid him, not wanting to be around if she ever does come to punish him more severely.
  • Good Samaritan: Fell often does the Hive residents a valuable service by bricking up the ooze portals, a dangerous hazard unique to that part of the city that most dabus stay clear of. Whether it's due to generosity, a compulsion to perform his old tasks, or a subtle jab at the Lady, nobody knows.
  • Power Tattoo: In the video game, he sells these to the Nameless One's party.
  • Reality Warper: On a limited scale. Occasionally, the tattoos he creates with his rebus speak become real items or even creatures (with limited duration). He has very limited control over this, and it more often than not happens unintentionally.
  • Semi-Divine: It's rumored In-Universe that he might be a Proxy — a direct servitor of a Power (in this case Aoskar) who is imbued with special divine powers as a result. His stablocks in both Uncaged: Faces of Sigil and Doors to the Unknown confirm that this is the case, and he can cast Dimensional Folding, Surelock, Plane Shift, Astral Spell and Gate as a 17th level cleric. Exactly how divine he is has become somewhat confusing: in 2nd edition "proxy" meant "directly responds to a deity and is given divine magic as a result" — essentially a cleric with a little extra oomph, but in 3rd edition, "proxy" meant "imbued with a share of a deity's own divine strength", becoming a demigod or lesser god, the sort of thing 4th edition would proceed to dub an "exarch". It's also not clear how someone can be a Proxy or Exarch of a god who is believed to be dead, and some Cagers think Fell is proof that Aoskar is Only Mostly Dead and could potentially return.
  • Starfish Language: Like all Dabus, he speaks in a visual language of rebus puzzles. Fortunately, a helpful customer who frequented his tattoo parlor often put together a guide for understanding the language of the Dabus, which he sells there too.

Judge Gabberslug
"Lively Place."
—Naggis Ham, a defendant brought to the Court of Woe.

The nalfeshnee judge of the Court of Woe, a court run by the Dustmen and used by the Guvners to handle a long backlog of minor infractions. Somewhat approachable for a demon.

  • The Alcatraz: Don't even think of fleeing the Court of Woe, cause you can't. It's situated in the Void of the Negative Material Plane, and the portal won't return a defendant to Sigil until Gabberslug passes sentence, as that's the Gate Key. Unfortunately, the place is only useful as a courtroom, given its limited size.
  • Black Sheep: Like all nalfeshnee, he was once a judge in the Abyss who passed sentence on doomed souls. But Gabberslug was something of a prankster who liked embarrassing the balors by selecting weak mortal souls for high positions. Eventually, he was caught and exiled.
  • Brilliant but Lazy: A nalfeshnee's intelligence borders on godlike, and Gabberslug is no exception. However, he's too lazy to even get off his throne if a fight breaks out in his court, fighting exclusively with magic if he has too. Admittedly, and with the other Dustmen and Lord Porpen there, he rarely has to.
  • The Dragon: Lord Porpen is this to Gabberslug; a Death Knight from Krynn, he was cursed by the god Hiddukel for seeing that his rival, an innocent man, hung in the king's court. Gabberslug has promised to someday help Porpen gain revenge on Hiddukel, who is also believed to reside in the Abyss.
  • Emotion Eater: For most nalfeshnee, the ability to consume negative emotions from mortals like fear, hatred, and despair is an Informed Ability, but for Gabberslug, it's an actual attack. In game terms, this attack haves the victim's ability scores (and all bonuses), hit points, and THACO for 1d4+1 weeks, and can be done at will. Presumably limited to defendants of the Court of Woe.
  • Fat Bastard: Much like other nalfeshnee, he's an evil, obese demon.
  • Gonk: He's even uglier than most nalfeshnee, which are already pretty ugly.
  • Kangaroo Court: While a defendant's chance of leaving alive is possibly greater than a standard Guvner court, there's not much legal structure in the Court of Woe. The attorney argues both for prosecution and defense (unless "Sly" Nye is defending) and there's no jury. Gabberslug typically rules as he feels like it.
  • Mind Rape: Defendants who deserve it (or annoy Gabberslug) the most are subjected to being drained of their emotions, a terrifying experience that causes a nightmarish trance for days.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: A Downplayed version; like all demons, Gabberslug is Made of Evil - specifically, Chaotic Evil - In-Universe. However, he favors the Chaotic aspect of his alignment more than he does the Evil aspect. Still evil, but more interested in making mischief or messing with people than causing suffering. Though he still likes causing suffering.
  • Odd Friendship: He genuinely likes Sly Nye, the Xaositect lawyer; the kooky tiefling's antics amuse Gabberslug and he sees something of a kindred spirit in him, which contributes to Nye's success rate.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: One rule Skall has insisted on is "no death penalty", and out of a respect for the lich's might, Gabberslug tries not to drain all of his victim's souls. Unfortunately, he doesn't always remember to limit his draining, especially when severely bored or angered.

The Grixitt
"I'm telling you, I know there was a portal here yesterday!"
—Lissandra at the site of one of the Grixitt's sabotages.

A female Ysgardian petitioner, the Grixitt is the last of the Expansionists, a Faction exiled from Sigil and which has apparently died out on Ysgard. Driven mad with her need to avenge her Faction on the Lady, she carries out an endless campaign of sabotage against Sigil, stalking through the dark of "night" to destroy as many portals as she can, in hopes of eventually sealing the Cage off from the rest of the multiverse and leaving it to die.

  • Deader Than Dead: As a Petitioner who has forsaken her native plane of Ysgard, if she dies in Sigil, she can never come back as she'll cease to exist entirely.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Grixitts are a now-extinct species of burrowing nocturnal mammals from Ysgard, which were hunted to extinction over their warm pelts. The Grixitt is essentially out to destroy the entire city of Sigil and kill everybody inside of it.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: In 5th Edition it seems she has finally been brought to justice, as the guidebook’s write up on the Prison says “the notorious saboteur the Grixitt" is an inmate in the maximum security wing.
  • Ms. Exposition: Her profile in the book is related by her personally.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Although her goals sound silly, she does succeed at damaging portals every night she goes out. And Sigil depends on its portal network; without them, it hasn't got any ability to provide sufficient food — in fact, without portals, it'll run out of drinkable water and breathable air! And no spells can be used to summon anything into Sigil, or escape from Sigil. Even without destroying all the portals, if the Grixitt can damage enough of them, she would trigger potentially devastating famine-sparked riots.
  • Technical Pacifist: She never fights if she can avoid it, not because she hates violence, but because she has only limited combat skills (she's only a 1st level Rogue) and because, as a Petitioner, death holds a true terror for her. Bargain and escape are her preferred methods for dealing with the threat of violence... although she's plenty ready to stab somebody in the back or slit their throat if she can get the drop on them first.
  • That Man Is Dead: She's so consumed by revenge that she's forgotten everything except her rage against the Lady of Pain; she doesn't even remember her old name, and just calls herself "The Grixitt".
  • Unknown Rival; She considers the Lady her eternal foe, but even if said foe knows about Grixitt's sabotage, one Petitioner is probably beneath her notice for now. Grixitt acknowledges this.

Harys Hatchis
I could sell a megaphone to a dabus.
—Harys

An energetic, friendly and vibrant male human mage, the Sigilite-born Harys Hatchis is Sigil's number one promoter. Promoter of what, you might ask? Why, anything and everything! Harys specializes in big, flashy advertisements for any business, no matter how big or small, that's willing to pay him for his work.

  • Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Subverted; Hary does want to take revenge on the Clerks Ward, but doesn't promote active violence. He favors subtler acts of revenge, like concealing the code to unlocking the Hall of Records' treasury in a fold-up advertisement he's recently launched.
  • Freudian Excuse: Harys' obsession with jink and his hatred of the bureaucrats in the Clerks Ward stems from the tragedies that befell his family due to beauracratic mismanagement. Fired (wrongfully so, he insists) from his original promising job at the Hall of Information after loyally working there for six years, this was followed by the Hall of Speakers cancelling an order for uniforms, plunging his family's tailoring business into a financial hole. When the Hall of Records made a mistake in their tax assessment that saw his family be bankrupted and die a pauper's death, it cemented a life-long vendetta.
  • Large Ham: Being a pitchman, he has made this into an art.

Iarmid
Say... this doesn't hurt at all! Gimme a refund!
—Morvun, getting accupuncture treatment from Iarmid.

An Aasimar of the Transcendent Order, Iarmid runs "The Other Place", Sigil's premium massage and physical therapy resource after the Great Gym itself. Originally a long-empty greeting hall, The Other Place got its start when Iarmid realized that many paying customers were being turned away from the Great Gym due to members of the Transcendent Order invoking faction membership privileges to steal slots amongst the massage tables, therapeutic baths, and other treatments. Following the creedo of his order, Iarmid promptly took over the hall and made it into his own spa, with his Factol's eventual blessing.

  • Appropriated Appellation: Iarmid didn't really want to call his spa "The Other Place", but his Factol advised him to just adopt what the customers asking for it were calling it when they turned up at the Great Gym. He's grown used to it.
  • Carry a Big Stick: He wields a quarterstaff for those very rare occasions when he needs to fight.
  • Technical Pacifist: Iarmid hates violence and leaves most defense of the Other Place to its guards — a mixture of bariaurs and equinals. However, if necessary, he will fight to defend his workers and his customers, always striving to do the minimum damage needed to disable, disarm or restrain the assailant.

Jemorille the Exile
"Him? He tells the same tale to anyone who buys him a drink."
—Bartender at the Fortune's Wheel.

A rilmani of the argenach caste, Jemorille is an arrogant and boastful being who insists that he is one of the greatest manipulators in the entire multiverse. The reality, it's hinted, is that he's a failure who was sent to Sigil mostly because they hoped he would be incapable of causing any more damage there.

  • All There in the Manual: If you need proof that Jemorille is full of hot air, the now-out of print official Jemorille figure explicitly states that he has failed in every single assignment he's ever been given by his superiors, invariably causing huge amounts of chaos in the process.
  • Balance Between Good and Evil: Maintaining such is the goal of all rilmani, and to be fair, he's at least trying to do so.
  • Beat Them At Their Own Game: Shemeska may be King of the Cross Trade, but Jemorille is pulling a cross-trade on her.
  • The Chessmaster: As a rilmani, he's supposed to be this, manipulating the forces of Good and Evil so as to maintain the Balance. He's just not very good at it. He often uses actual chess as a metaphor for his activities.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Jemorille is nowhere near as good as he thinks he is, but falling short of that standard still leaves him a lot of room to actually be a pretty good Manipulative Bastard by any other standard. Also, his supernatural powers and combat skills befit that of the typical argenach, making him just as dangerous as a lesser Blood War General in terms of raw might.
  • The Exile: Obviously. Jemorille claims his exile is self-imposed, although it's hinted he was assigned to Sigil because the rilmani view it as an easy job.
  • The Mole: This is, in fact, the usual modus operandi of rilmani in general; His usual identity is that of Colcook, Shemeska's most trusted groomer guard; even Shemeska doesn't know that her most loyal henchman is a mole.
  • Never My Fault: In Uncaged, Jemorille proudly talks about being responsible for the creation and subsequent destruction of the Temple of Elemental Evil on Oerth, counseling Rajaat on arcane magic on Athas, and uniting warring kingdoms on Faerun by giving them a common enemy. He insists that he should receive no blame for the fact that the first led to an Abyssal lord escaping to bedevil the land, the second led to Rajaat's genocidal ecology-destroying wars, and the third was achieved by planting the idea of attacking the Sword Coast in the Khahan's mind in the first place.
  • The Peter Principle: Most likely reason why such a high-ranking rilmani makes so many mistakes.
  • Small Name, Big Ego : Put it this way; Jemorille believes he is singlehandedly responsible for everything that happens in Sigil, up to and including balancing out the interplay of the Factions and even that he's ultimately managing the flow of the Blood War! Just thinking about it a moment should reveal the absurdity of these claims.
  • Time Abyss: If he even spoke to Rajaat, he must be about 13,500 years old, at least. Not that this is that uncommon for planar races, who can potentially live forever.

Koe
So what's so great about dealing arms? I sell all the body parts!
—Seamusxanthuszenus

A rogue asura who has become distraught over the sheer destruction that the Blood War brings to the planes. To try and combat this, he has founded a secretive arms-trading ring that smuggles Celestial-crafted arms and armor to the Lower Planes in an interdimensional black market. Koe's hope is that by keeping both factions already equipped, they will have little cause to look outside of their own miserable realms for advantages, confining the brunt of the fighting to the Lower Planes instead of letting it spill across the rest of the multiverse. His greatest hope is that this will lead to the fiends ultimately exterminating themselves, or at least weaken them critically enough to let a united celestial army destroy them once and for all.

  • Fallen Angel: A variant; Koe hasn't really "fallen" in the most common definition of the term, but he is still a "rogue" in that he now serves his own cause rather than directly serving a divine superior, like other asuras do.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: In the Fifth Edition guidebook, he is mentioned to be an inmate at the Prison, so it seems he was eventually discovered. No word on what happened to his two accomplices.
  • Well Intentioned Extremist: He sincerely believes that his arms-dealing is serving the greater good of the multiverse. Better the fiends be kept butchering each other over the worthless and empty Lower Planes, slowly grinding themselves into annihilation, than they be free to rampage across the rest of the multiverse.

Kylie
"I see something of myself in that one."
—Shemeska

A tiefling tout (a nice word for "opportunist") Kyle acts as a guide to anyone needed information - or a price.

  • Beware My Stinger Tail: Invoked; her tail is actually harmless by itself, but she's strapped a metal barb to it and trained herself to use it as an emergency weapon. If somebody gets on her bad side, they may not realize the danger until her tail has stabbed them.
  • Cool Pet: Her closest friend is Dib, an Byotian ethyk; dib's ability to induce anger in other beings can often distract and confuse anyone who tries to hurt Kyle. At least, long enough for her to either flee or drive a knife between his ribs.
  • Cute Monster Girl: While she is a tiefling, she looks almost completely human, her one demonic feature being her long tail.
  • Famous Ancestor: Maybe; many people who are in the know about Shemeshka's protection of Kylie have speculated that the Arcanaloth is actually Kylie's mom and the tiefling doesn't know it.
  • Knowledge Broker: As a tout, this is her primary purpose, and she's street smart enough to figure out anything that goes on in the Cage.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: She thinks she's the hottest stuff to ever hit Sigil's streets, boasting about how she's able to run rings around Autochon and Shemeshka. The reality is that Authochon hasn't killed her yet because Shemeshka has told him not to. In fact, she's forcing him to protect her, which is where a lot of Kylie's success really stems from.
  • Stripperific: Tieflings are not known for modesty; her outfit brings to mind a leather bikini, boots, and gloves, with some suggestively-placed belts and straps. Given her class of Rogue, and her "job" as a tout, it's not a surprise; it's more than likely a deliberate ploy to give her an edge over suckers who can't drag their eyes away from her curves.
  • Verbal Tic: Kyle's most common response to any question asked of her is "maybe", her way of keeping someone interested and asking more questions.

Lissandra the Gate-Seeker
"Maybe next time you won't try grabbing things that aren't yours?
—Lissandra to a thief who tried to swipe her logbook

Originally from the Toril, the female human mage known as Lissandra claims that she came to Sigil simply because she was bored and curious. Fascinated by portals, she has dedicated herself to studying them, drafting maps and logbooks that tally known portals and identified portal keys throughout Sigil. What makes her different many other sages doing the same thing is that she has no love for Sigil's established power hierarchy, and eagerly disseminates her findings in an effort to overthrow the stranglehold that the nobility and factions have over such information, which makes her quite popular with the Revolutionary League, even if she doesn't really give a damn about the Factions proper.

  • Beware the Cute Ones: She's a very beautiful woman, but she's also an extremely powerful and experienced wizard, and those who forget the latter will get a very painful reminder of it.
  • For the Lulz: She abandoned her home world and everything she knew simply because she was bored of it. At least, that's her story, and who knows if it's true.
  • Knowledge Broker: Given the nature of Sigil, locating and identifying portals is bound to make a hefty profit.
  • Mugging the Monster: What you'll experience if you try to steal her logbook; many thieves have tried to swipe it, knowing the information it holds is valuable, but they always regret it. It's booby-trapped with a chain contingency that first hits the thief with chain lightning to make him drop it, then suggestion with the order to leave immediately.
  • So Beautiful It's a Curse: She's extremely attractive, with a Charisma score of 14, but she never flirts and hates being reduced to a mere object of beauty.

Ly'kritch
"Even the dead fear the darkness."
—Warning scrawled on the wall of the Mortuary

A shadow fiend from the Abyss that has taken to stalking the denizens of Sigil, murdering random victims by capturing their souls inside gems for its own evil purposes.

  • And I Must Scream: The fate of those trapped inside of its gems as a disembodied consciousness, especially as the typical fates for such unfortunates are either to be put on a shadow fiend's mantle as a trophy for all eternity or to be eaten.
  • Living Shadow: Like all shadow fiends, Ly'kritch is an insubstantial demonic spirit of pure animate shadow.

Milori
"Dabus, Xaositech, Modron, Vrock - to me they all speak the same language."
—Milori

A lillend with an uncanny knack for languages, to the point she can not only effortlessly understand Xaositect Scramblespeak, but immediately discern the meaning behind the rebuses that that Dabus use to communicate with other races. A long-time friend of Fell's, she is the author of the Dabus-Common Phrasebook, the only real lexicon to dabus communication to exist so far.

  • Cunning Linguist: She's made a career out of it.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Milori doesn't wear so much as a stitch of clothing, not out of any intent to seduce others but simply because she just doesn't see the point of struggling with clothes given her unusual body structure.
  • Odd Friendship: With Fell; most Cagers stay away from him if they can, but she seems to have become a kindred spirit.
  • Omniglot: Milori can speak any language, and in fact makes a living by holding lectures on different planar tongues.
  • Our Angels Are Different: As a lillend, Milors appears as a female serpent-centaur with angelic wings and a Chaotic Good racial alignment.
  • Snake People: Like all lillends, Milori has the upper body of a beautiful woman with angelic wings, but from the waist down, she has the writhing coils of a 20ft long serpent's body.

Morvun & Phineas
"He's the depressing one."
—Morvin, referring to Phineas
"He's the depressing one."
—Phineas, referring to Morvin

Male Fensir twins who migrated to Sigil from their former homes in Ysgard due to their being regarded as bad luck for their lack of the normally innate spell-casting abilities of their people. Driven by despair, they easily fell in with the Bleakers faction, and with their artistic talents (or delusions, in Morvun's case), they have since chosen to scrape a living as bleakniks.

  • All Trolls Are Different: They're Fensir, an extraplanar race of Chaotic Neutral trolls native to Ysgard, defined by, amongst other things, innate magic and almost always being born as twins. And even by Fensir standards they're odd, as the two lack any real talent for magic, which is normally an inherent birthright for Fensire males.
  • Beatnik: They belong to the Bleak Cabal's musical & poetic brotherhood, who're known as "Bleakniks" — thematically, they're Beatniks with maybe a dash of Goth.
  • Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The two are a classic example of this; Morvun is outright described in his statblock as being "dramatic, self-absorbed and unrealistic", whilst Phineas is "dry, tolerant and pragmatic". Morvun flounces around, convinced of his unrecognized genius, whilst Phineas does what he can to manage his drama-queen of a brother.
  • Identical Twin ID Tag : It's actually so easy to tell the two trolls apart that they almost don't look identical at all. Morvun has a shaved head tattooed with a black-inking of an eclipsed sun, speaks with elongated and overstressed syllables, and always wears black leather knee-high laced boots, baggy pants and a stringed vest. Phineas has greenish-black hair he keeps in a short ponytail, a small silver ring piercing in his nose, and wears a simple black woolen tunic and hose.
  • It's All About Me: Morvun is immensely arrogant, self-absorbed, and dramatically convinced of his own importance and skills. He's even kept the twins from getting a decently paying job by acting as couriers for secret messages because that would add "meaning" to their lives.
  • Muggle Born of Mages: Male Fensir normally have innate spell-like abilities, but Morvun and Phineas just never got the hang of it.
  • Properly Paranoid: Despite the fact that they've been living in Sigil for years without its light turning them to stone, the twins still maintain a stockpile of petrification cures all the same — which is a particularly good idea, given the very nature of Sigil means that they could fall through a portal to some place with real sunlight at any moment.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Morvun is convinced of his skills as a Bleaknik poet, but the plain and simple truth of it is that he's just a hack. The rare decent bits of morbid poetry he comes up with are actually given to him in his dreams by Xideous. Phineas, on the other hand, is a genuinely talented musician; he's painfully aware of how inept Morvun is, but his loyalty to his twin keeps him from trying to illuminate him on how bad he really is.
  • Taken for Granite: Like all Fensir, they turn to stone if exposed to sunlight. The weird luminescence that emanates from Sigil doesn't have this effect, but the brothers stockpile antidote potions against it just in case.
  • Terrible Artist: Mostly Morvun. His morbid, gloomy poetry isn't much appreciated, as much for the fact it's not even good' bleaknik poetry. The only folks who really listen are the ones in line to enter the Gatehouse, who are already pretty depressed.

"Sly" Nye
"A way duck is troublesome to scramblespeak great questions."
—Nye

A criminal council lawyer, who is also a Xaositect, Sly is a living oxymoron.

  • Boring Invincible Hero: Sly never loses a case. Ever. Not even in the Court of Woe. It is suggested that juries sometimes rule in his favor to get rid of him, but to him, victory is victory.
  • Crusading Lawyer: Zigzagged. Whether he charges astronomical prices or does it for free depends on his mood, but he always gets results.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: He has six chaos imp friends who inhabit his six ioun stones; most everyone else finds them a nuisance, especially Guvners.
  • Uriah Gambit: The Guvners have often sent him to defend at the Court of Woe hoping he won't come back. He always does.

Omott
"Ask not what your power can do for you, but what you can do for your power."
—A proxy giving advice to Omott

A linqua that was tricked, captured and tortured by a band of Baatezu for several centuries, before being dismissed. Knowing that it cannot return to Sung Chiang's service, Omott now seeks a new god to offer its service to, and has fallen in with the Will of One.

  • Carry a Big Stick: Wields an enchanted bludgeon called a Mace of Pain.
  • Drunk on the Dark Side: Or rather, in painful withdrawal from it. Omott pines for the divine power it once had, but cannot return to Sung Chiang, so now seeks another god to serve.
  • Golem: A variant; linquas are sapient goblin-like constructs native to Gehenna, created as servitors of the evil deity Sung Chiang.
  • Neutral No Longer: Inverted; its In-Universe alignment was Neutral Evil to begin with, but it is now True Neutral. It is now willing to shift anywhere on the Alignment axis required in order to meet its goal.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: All linquas know the legend of the first of their kind, who was also the first to leave Sung Chiang; after pining from homesickness for years (much like Omott has), it decided to go back and beg forgiveness, only to be slain. Thus, Omott doesn't dare do to try and return to Sung Chiang, no matter how much it longs to.

Parakk the Ratcatcher
"I tell ya, that guy can think like a rat."
—One of Parakk's satisfied customers

A githzerai who has chosen to serve The Us, hoping to help the cranium rats rebel against and slay Ilsensine in order to strike a crippling blow against the hated illithids through the death of one of their two patron gods.

  • Beneath Notice: The reason why Parakk has taken up the guise of a ratcatcher; not only does this allow it to lure cranium rats into the embrace of the Us, but it helps keep it safe from Ilsensine.
  • Eccentric Exterminator: He catches rats for a living, and his activities make him stand out.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Is very, very proud of himself for his self-perceived role as an avenger of the gith.

Patch
"I...am..."
—Patch's first thought

A patch of razorvine given sentience through the efforts of Ylem, the unimaginatively named Patch's existence is a secret carefully preserved by Rule-Of-Three, who seeks to monopolize the razorvine's oracular properties: by grafting in a strand of razorvine from anywhere else in the multiverse, and providing Patch with blood to use as a medium, the razorvine can tell its audience about anything that happened near the strand that was blended into it.

  • Apocalyptic Log: How he is described in Uncaged, the log in question belonging to a wizard who discovered it was alive.
  • Bigger Bad: It's hinted that Patch's ability is a reflection of a similar entity - the size of a mountain - in the Abyssal plane where razorvine originated, used by demons to spy on everything everywhere the plant grows.
  • Kill It with Fire: As a sentient piece of razorvine, Patch can't die unless its root is burned with magical fire.
  • Seers: Patch can see anything that has ever happened at any point in the multiverse and at any point in history, so long as happened near razorvine and you can provide both a stem of the right razorvine and blood for it to write answers with.
  • When Trees Attack: Zigzagged. Patch doesn't go out of its way to kill people, and in fact it can't move on its own at all. But, it uses blood given to it by pouring it over its stem to write out messages when asked questions.

Qaida
Please stay in town overnight, I may have questions for you tomorrow."
—Qaida, setting up a mark.

An aasimar of the Dustmen, Qaida is most famous for her obsession with gathering lore, constantly talking to people with the aid of a mimir to gather even the most inconsequential trivia that she can.

  • Bald Woman: Her head is completely hairlessalso qualifies as Bald of Evil.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Whiles she poses as a researcher who interviews residents of Sigil, she is secretly aligned with Ly'kritch to capture souls in hopes of finding one she can use to help her exert control over the Dustmen.
  • Cute Monster Girl: Her planetar heritage shows through in the fact she has vibrant emerald green skin and is naturally hairless, especially on her head.
  • Demonic Possession: Invoked; she sometimes lets Ly'kritch possess her from time to time.
  • Freudian Excuse: Her angelic father abandoned her due to her mother being an evil sorceress, and her mother dumped her on a clan of tieflings. Her adoptive parents decided to get back at her for being an aasimar, a race that receives instant trust in comparison to their own, by raising her to be thoroughly evil.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: Her mimir sort of, a magical skull she uses to record conversations. While it is intelligent and talks, it has only limited sapience, unable to do much but record information and relate said information.
  • Lawful Stupid: One project Qaida seems obsessed with is proving that a contract signed by Verden is being violated, and that Verden has to pay up. (The contract in question, signed many centuries ago, is one promising the rights to Verden's corpse after death, and as of now, Verden has lived far longer than an elf's typical life span.) Exactly why one cadaver is so important to the Dustmen that she won't consider simply voiding the contract (which Verden has offered to do for thousands times the original value) is clearly an unhealthy obsession. And seeing how Qaida is trying to use the Court of Woe as her legal means, the claim is likely not approved by the Guvners.
    • Subverted, however, in that there's a reason for it: Qaida uses the fear of these contracts to blackmail others into serving her, often setting them up for her to steal their souls. Given Verden's age, Qaida is certain Verden has powerful secrets that would be of great use to her, if she could get control over the elf.
  • Light Is Not Good: Due to having celestial lineage, and thus being partially Made of Good, everybody tends to trust aasimars on sight. With Qaida, who is a death-worshipping evil priestess who works with demons, that's a misplaced trust at best.
  • Sinister Minister: She's a Cleric turned Proxy of the Death God, Arawn, and part of her reason for wanting to usurp control over the Dustmen is to convert them from their abstract nihilistic faith into the multiverse's biggest Arawn cult.
  • The Starscream: Her main goal is to unseat Skall and replace him as Factol of the Dustmen; most would call this unrealistic, as Skall founded the Dustmen and has been Factol through it's entire long history.

Rule-Of-Three

Bring me three coppers, I'll tell you a lie.
Bring me three smiles, by evening you 'II cry.

Bring me three Bleakers, in madness you 'II die.
—Sigil nursery rhyme about Rule-of-Three

A marquis cambion who masquerades as an ancient githzerai seer, Rule-Of-Three is a malevolent figure who enjoys invoking the Rule Of Three as an excuse to sow confusion, incomprehension, chaos and despair in others. His primary goal is to find some way to end the Blood War by uniting the three major races of fiend and turning them against the Upper Planes.

  • Anthropomorphic Personification: He represents the universal axiom that three is the most perfect number. See two things? Look for a third.
  • Dark Messiah: Wants to bring an end to the Blood War... so the fiends can instead go to war against the celestials.
  • Evil Counterpart: He seems to be this to Unity-of-Rings, in more than one way.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Most folks who go to him for advice claim he's rather approachable for a demon, although his covert activities shed doubt on his motives.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: As a Marquis Cambion, Rule-Of-Three is a direct offspring between a "true" Tanar'ri and a human. Some have speculated he may be one of Graz'zt's offspring, but Rule-Of-Three denies it.
  • Mad Oracle: Most see him as an eccentric old wise man, and he is one, more or less. As his "day job". Subverted in that he's not mad, merely playacting, and also in that he often manipulates the prophecies just to mess with peoples' heads.
  • Rule of Three: He seems to be the Anthropomorphic Personification of the concept, and tends to reflect it. As an adviser, he always gives three pieces of advice, and requires three items of payment. (Value of such items can vary.)
  • Voluntary Shapeshifter: Sports a magical Hat of Disguise and has the innate ability to cast Polymorph Self three times per day, allowing him to assume various different forms as he sees fit. His most common form is that of an elderly githzerai.

Alluvius Ruskin
"There's a bit of life in this old bird yet."
—Ruskin

An ancient tiefling who runs one of Sigil's premier portal key shops, Alluvius has more up her sleeve than she lets on.

  • Bazaar of the Bizarre: Her shop sells spell components, enjoying excellent business in a city where mages are common. Having such ready access to gemstones aids in her overall scheme.
  • Best Served Cold: A major motivation of her plans, seeing as the Lady crushed the other Incanterium out of Sigil centuries ago.
  • Cute Monster Girl: Well, she's old enough to be past this now, but she fit the bill when she was younger, being a humanoid woman with a long, cat-like tail and two stubby little devilish horns on her head.
  • Evil Old Folks: Is centuries old and is thoroughly evil. First and foremost, she willfully trades with Ly'kritch for his stolen souls, hoping to find ones strong enough to be used as part of her plan to conquer Sigil. Those she discards, she sells as portal keys — not only knowing full well that most gems used as portal keys are destroyed as part of the process, but actively reveling in the possibility that this leaves the consciousness inside Deader Than Dead!
  • Evil Sorcerer: She's a thoroughly evil member of the Incanterium, a now-sundered former faction of arcane supremacists who believed magic held the ultimate power over reality. She wants to conquer Sigil by finding some way to stealthily consume all of its native magic, believing that if she can make the magic of Sigil part of her, she can usurp it right out from under the Lady's nose.
  • Faux Affably Evil: She has the reputation of a doting old shopkeep with a grandmotherly personality; as a result, few victims suspect a thing until it's too late.
  • Glamour Failure: She wears thick, darkened-glass spectacles to hide the trademark all-silver eyes of an Incantifier, and likewise has taken to wearing gloves to conceal the fact that her fingertips sometimes produce a light-blue glow, another mark of her Sect.
  • Golem: If people try to steal from or damage her shop, various bits and pieces on the ground floor will come together as golems (bone, wood, stone, glass, etc) and defend her.
  • Horned Humanoid: The horns poking through her scraggly white hair make it pretty obvious that she's a tiefling.
  • Mineral MacGuffin: A keystone of her goal is finding a gemstone containing the soul of a powerful wizard mentioned in an old legend who, supposedly, came very close to truly defeating the Lady of Pain. He failed, and she trapped him in this gem, which she placed in a vault on the lowest level of Pandemonium, where godlike beings store things mortals aren't supposed to have. The myth suggests that the Lady may not have been able to create Mazes back then, and thus suggests this ability could be taken from her. Putting two and two together has given Ruskin the idea of finding this prisoner to gain a potent ally, and she believes dealing with similar gems will ultimately lead her to him.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Averted. She does everything she can to keep her plans secret to herself, in order to avoid getting mazed or flayed by the Lady of Pain.
  • Squishy Wizard: Subverted. Incantifiers have 18/00 strength, highest a mortal her size can have without being considered superhuman; however, Incantifiers much prefer magic to handle a crisis, and Ruskin is unable to fight physically.
  • Walking Spoiler: Just look at how many of her tropes are spoiler-blocked!
  • Wild Magic: Her specialty as a wizard, it is a rare, potent, and dangerous field of magic that focuses raw Chaos.
  • Willfully Weak: Alluvius does admit that she is a wizard, but takes pains to only show off the barest minimum of her skills, so people will underestimate her.

Shemeska the Marauder
"Better stay on her good side, berk - if you can find it."
—Veteran groomer guard to a new recruit.

A female (or is she?) arcanoloth/ravaasta (in 4e) who is infamous throughout Sigil for being a fabulously wealthy business owner and the master of the biggest and best guild of spies, thieves and assassins in all the Cage, a position that has earned her the title "King of the Crosstrade".

  • Ambiguous Gender: Dresses, acts like, calls "herself" and is referred to as a female... but her profile writeup in the Uncaged: Faces of Sigil sourcebook officially lists her gender with a male symbol. Later works, however, use a female symbol. Not helped by the fact that all yugoloths are hermaphrodites, according to the Faces of Evil: The Fiends sourcebook.
  • Arc Villain: She is the Big Bad of the 5th Edition adventure "The Turn of Fortune's Wheel".
  • Berserk Button: Her temper is infamously volatile, but the surest ways to tick her off? Ask why she doesn't call herself "Queen of the Crosstrade", or mention A'kin the Friendly Fiend.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Incredibly Lame Pun aside (arcanoloths look like anthropomorphic jackals, ravaasta look like equally anthropomorphic foxes), as sweet, friendly and generally affable as she acts, Shemeshka is still a highly dangerous fiend and, more importantly, has a savage temper that is easily unleashed.
  • Cunning Like a Fox: Most arcanoloths appear as a humanoid fiend with the head of a wolf or jackal, but Shemeska is a fox-woman with silvery fur, and she is certainly clever and cunning.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Of the NPCs of Planescape, she may easily be one of the best known, besides the Lady of Pain herself. When the 4th edition "Manual of the Planes" sourcebook was released, Shemeshka was one of the very few Planescape NPCs to make the edition jump. Indeed, one could argue that the Arcanoloths survived the transition and became the Ravaastas mainly due to her impact on Planescape.
  • Evil Sorceress: All arcanoloths are wizards (not just fiends with spell-like ability); given her narcissism, Shemeshka's usual choice of spells are the flashiest, most destructive sort, like lightning bolt, burning hands, and Tasha's uncontrollable hideous laughter.
  • Flip-Flop of God : Whether or not Shemeshka is a transwoman or a ciswoman; as mentioned, "Uncaged" says she is male, while other sourcebooks say she is female. "Faces of Evil", meanwhile, pretty much makes it canon that it's all up to what she considers herself to be, since as an arcanoloth she's biologically hermaphroditic of the "both sexes simultaneously" variety.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: Shemeshka's temper, and the spontaneity with which she'll fly into a berserk rage, is infamous throughout Sigil.
  • Interspecies Romance: It's a common rumor that the reason Shemeshka hasn't moved against her would-be rival, the tiefling Kylie, is because Kylie is the her daughter via a liason with a human man.
  • Mama Bear: If Kyle truly is her daughter, the Trope applies; hurting her is off limits if Shemeshka has anything to say about it. As Autochron the Bellringer discovered, Kyle seems be under Shemeshka's protection.
  • She Is the King  : Shemeshka is always referred to as the King of the Crosstrade — and don't you forget it!
  • Shrine to Self: The hub of the Fortune's Wheel casino is dominated by a fountain with a solid gold statue of Shemeska, with coins continually raining down from her outstretched hands. The statue is, in fact, an illusion, but the magical device that creates it is worth far more than an actual statue would.
  • Sissy Villain: Whether or not you believe she's male, Shemeshka is still very flamboyant and effeminate. She iconically favors wearing a dress made of thousands of small blue/green/violet beads, and she adorns herself with beads, jewelry, bracelets and rings to the point of garishness, as others have noted (but rarely commented on). She's also incredibly vain and fussy about her grooming; she always has to be meticulously beautiful and she surrounds herself with "groomer-guards", one of whom carries a full-length mirror and the rest of whom have the main responsibility of keeping her immaculately clean and beautiful, at all times.
    • Of course, the groomer-guards are also her most deadly assassins and serve as bodyguards, whilst the mirror is a powerful magical item (a "Mirror of Mental Prowess") that enables her to scry people even across the boundary of planes, teleport to any place she is scrying, read thoughts and perform divinations. (The one in charge of holding the mirror, Colcook, is the servant who's worked for her the longest, and the one she trusts the most. Unbeknownst to her he's actually Jemorile the Exile in disguise, the rilmani who is assigned to Sigil.
  • Spy Master: Shemeska specializes in gaining information others want to keep secret, and controls a vast network of informants with spies everywhere. No doubt, she has them in every faction and in most governments beyond Sigil. Anyone hoping to oppose her (Player Characters included) will quickly find their own secrets targeted.
  • Transgender: It's obscured by time, and canonically dubious but, a fan willing to track down the 2nd edition "Uncaged: Faces of Sigil" sourcebook will discover that Shemeshka the Marauder is actually male. She just looks like a woman, dresses like a woman, and insists on being referred to by feminine pronouns.
  • Unknown Rival: While she becomes enraged if someone mentions A'kin in her presence, no-one dares mention Zadara, a titan and member of the Merkants who Shemeshka hates not only because her financial and business connections give her more influence in Sigil, but because Zadara is a more influential female resident. Of course, the most influential female resident is the Lady herself, but no-one ever points that out to Shemeshka. It's unlikely Shemeshka will ever try to make a move against Zadara, though; Zadara is a titan, who killed two pit fiends who invaded her house, personally. There are witnesses to back this up.
  • Whip It Good: When angry or actually attacked, Shemeshka's preferred weapon is to break off a vine from her razorvine headdress and use it as a lethally barbed whip.

Tarholt
"I just don't know what to do with that boy anymore."
—Traban

A prime dwarf originally from the world of Krynn, Tarholt's clan migrated through a portal and set up a forge in Sigil. Although a profitable existence, Tarholt has never taken to it, and instead makes a living as a wandering merchant, specializing in magical gemstones harvested from the Dwarven Mountains on the Outlands.

  • The Friend Nobody Likes: His allies and companions have called him selfish (typical for the Fated, alas), rude, overly stern, and contributing little to conversations.
  • Intrepid Merchant: If his dealings require him to hoof it from the Spire to the Dwarven Mountain, to Glorium, and back, he will.
  • Ludd Was Right: He is of the "Appeal to Tradition" type, not a popular view in Sigil.
  • Not So Different: He was surprised when a bariaur compared him to Harys Hatchis, whom Tarholt views as an "urgent buffoon".
  • Obliviously Evil: Tarholt has no idea that Qaida is using the soul-harvesting gems he gives her to steal souls from living people throughout Sigil, and would be horrified to learn this.
  • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: He's tough, dour, adventurous, stubborn, and dedicated, almost to a fault, a typical dwarf.
  • Thicker Than Water: A dwarf's loyalty lies in family and clan, and Tarholt is no exception; his biggest reason for staying in Sigil, a place he dislikes, is to support Traban's Forge.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy:
    • In Sigil, dealing and associating with evil creatures is not always avoidable, but Tarholt doesn't like Estrevan simply because Estrevan is an ogre, a hardheaded policy that can often get him in trouble. Of course, Estrevan doesn't help matters by commenting he would have Tarholt for lunch - literally - if this opposition occurred on Krynn.
    • He also dislikes using portals, the usual form of transportation in the setting.

Tripicus
"Would you like to attend my lecture? You'd make a fine visual aid.
—Tripicus to a prime.

An ursinal sage who is fascinated by the denizens of the Prime Material and has made studying them his life's work. He even gives lectures talking about the different prime worlds.

  • Bears are Bad News: Usually an inversion. He's a cordial and polite intellectual, but can quickly turn into the type of bear who plays the Trope straight if he has to.
  • Intelligent Gerbil: He's one of a race of talking, civilized bears known for being bookish and wise.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Cirily; she's a vehement anti-prime bigot, whilst Tripicus loves the Prime Material and its denizens.
  • Well Intentioned Extremist: As an accomplice to Koe in the plan to arm both sides of the Blood War, he feels doing so is a Necessarily Evil.

Unity-of-Rings

Give it to the deva,
See it with the poor.
Give it to a factol,

Never see it more.
—Sigil nursery rhyme

A movanic deva who acts to spread good and promote foresight throughout Sigil, according to his own strange circular reasoning.

  • Anthropomorphic Personification: He represents the universal axiom that claims a circle is the most perfect shape and that things tend to move in circular motion.
  • Badass Pacifist: Peaceful and nonviolent, yes, but can turn into a One-Man Army quickly if he becomes angry enough.
  • Good Counterpart: He and Rule-of-Three are opposites in many ways. One is an angel, the other is a fiend, one represents Law and Goodness, the other Chaos and Evil, and both are representations of a cosmic principle. This leads many to believe that a third counterpart exists representing the third axiom (the idea that, because the universe is infinite, any spot can be considered the center) but while nobody has ever seen Center of All, he likely exists because, well, Rule of Three.
  • Good Samaritan: He is a charitable being that provides aid and help to anyone who needs it, not only in Sigil, but the Outlands. Much like an angel would be expected to.

The Us
We offer power. Accept it or die.
—The Us

The largest known swarm of Cranium Rats in all of Sigil, The Us grew in such power that they were able to realize Ilsensine's tyrannous grasp on their mind, rebel against it, and even break free. Now it hides in the run-down parts of Sigil, working to grow larger and larger until its powers are great enough to kill Ilsensine and free all Cranium Rats.

  • Anti-Magic: Another trait of Cranium Rats, they have at least 70% Magic Resistance due to an Intelligence Score over 20.
  • Evil Genius: A swarm of Cranium Rats has a collective intelligence that is proportionate to its size; as the largest known, the Us has evolved it to near-godlike levels.
  • Hive Mind: A typical trait of Cranium Rats, but much larger than most.
  • Join or Die: Any Cranium Rats it catches are given a simple choice; become part of The Us, or be slain.
  • Necessarily Evil: How they view their need to kill Cranium Rats that won't become part of The Us — it's a sad thing, but they're not ready to fight Ilsensine just yet, and so they need to make sure that Ilsensine never finds out about their goals.
  • Psychic Powers: Cranium Rats with an Intelligence Score over 15 (including this one) can use an illithid's mind blast ability every round. This is the power that makes mind flayers so notorious and deadly.
  • The Starscream: Cranium rats are minions of Ilsensine, but this group secretly plots against him.

Verden
"That bub at the Fortune's Wheel packs a wallop - leaves me weak for days."
—Kinder Pearle, gambler and drinker.

To most she's the elven serving maid at the Azure Eye tavern; few know that she's a Prolonger, an evil woman who would, given the chance, drain the life from you to prolong her own.

  • Blessed with Suck: Can steal the life from others to sustain her own existence, but ages at four times the normal rate, forcing her to steal lives much more frequently.
  • Deal with the Devil: Zigzagged. The contract she signed so many years ago was drafted and developed by mortals, but she regards it as this Trope. Indeed, the Dustmen seem unable to enforce it very well.
  • Dirty Coward: Comes with being a Prolonger. The thought of dying terrifies her, and she'll flee if there's the slightest threat of it.
  • Properly Paranoid: She thinks the Dustmen are trying to murder her, and to a degree, one of them is; Qaida is trying to appeal to Saure to finish her off.
  • The Vamp: Her usual MO is to flirt with some drunk so she can lure him to a secluded spot and drain him. In a city like Sigil, it's rare that the occasional corpse of a drunk adventurer raises suspicion.
  • Vampiric Draining: While not undead, she can use Energy Drain via touch on a single victim per day, using this to reduce her physical age. Her natural aging, however, is four times faster than a regular elf's, the downside of her powers.

The Will of One
That bariur dreamed up the multiverse? No wonder it's such a barmy place.
—Puster, member of the Bleak Cabal.

A small group within the Sign of One faction that is making a big impact, this fledgling Sect claims to have found "The One", the individual who dreams up the entire multiverse. That individual is the mad bariaur, Terwolfe. Although many suspect that Prisine, the water genasi who leads the Sect, is just using him as a front to gain power. What's even more alarming is that the Will of One is openly campaigning under the promise they can use their powers to will a slain god back to life. And, their current candidate? None other than Aoskar, the God of Portals slain by Her Bladed Serenity Herself...

  • Bullying a Dragon: Most lucid members of the Sign of One stay clear of this group, as they realize associating with enemies of the Lady is rarely a good idea.
  • Cute Monster Girl: Prisine looks like an attractive human woman with thin scales on her arms and neck, skin that feels unusually cold and clammy to the touch, and long teal hair that sways back and forth under its own power. Her art also depicts her with large, almost beast-like ears, but they aren't mentioned in the text.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Prisine descends from some long-ago union between human and water elemental.
  • Mad Oracle: Terwolf is presented as this by the Will of One. It's probably a scam.
  • Scam Religion: Their detractors claim such about them.

Xideous
"I feel that big things are in my future.
—Morvun, more correct than he assumes.

A shator gehreleth who seeks to rewrite the lost Book of Keeping, making it possible for mortal casters to summon and command yugoloths once again.

  • Bullying a Dragon: He even acknowledges that he is making powerful enemies by trying to rewrite the Book of Keeping.
  • Dream Weaver: Like all members of his kind, he has the ability to invade the dreams of mortals and rewrite them to his will. He mostly uses this to visit Morvun, the infamously inept Bleaknik poet, and leave him with Xideous' own poems to use, although Morvun's ego means he rarely shares what's dreamed.
  • Genius Bruiser: A shator is a hulking, muscular demon, but also with genius-level intellect and potent spellcasting ability.
  • Fantastic Racism: He absolutely hates yugoloths, mostly because they consider themselves superior to gehreleths on the grounds that it's all but impossible for mages to summon yugoloths. This is not an uncommon trait of gehreleths. He wants to bring the yugoloths down a notch by rewriting the Book of Keeping, a fiend-summoning tome that will make it possible for mortal spellcasters to easily summon and compel service from yugoloths, as they do every other kind of fiend.
  • For the Evulz: Basically why he bothers slipping some of his own poetry into Morvun's dreams.
  • Self-Restraint: Currently an inmate of the Irrevocably Criminally Insane ward of the Gatehouse, the ward reserved for the most dangerous lunatics, he is there by choice, believing it grants at least some protection from anyone who does not want the Book finished.
  • Treacherous Advisor: To Morvun, and the price he plans to enact won't be what Morvun expects.
  • Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Book of Keeping he's recreating will function as this once it's complete.

Ylem
"A Rogue Modron is about as believable as a Friendly Fiend."
—A'Kin

This weird being is a modron who thinks its a slaad. Or maybe the other way around. Either way, it's weird.

  • Bizarre Alien Biology: Originally, Ylem was a monodrone, a modron shaped like a sphere. Turning rogue has made it resemble a cube, causing many to think he's a quadrone.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: He loves fighting, seeing it as a curious exchange. He's not a good fighter, however (his class is Wizard and he has had no formal training in martial combat), and it's likely he's only survived because any would-be assailants are wierded out by his antics.
  • Creative Sterility: Ylem's motivations stem from his desire to reproduce, brought about by the slaadi part of it. It cannot, and knows it, but it seeks other ways to reproduce. It's principal goal is to create a spellhaunt, a type of living spell, from his own magic.
  • Distinguishing Mark: The only sign that Ylem isn't the typical rogue modron is a red splotch it felt compelled to etch on its "forehead", a reflection of its slaadi nature. Most Cagers see it as nothing but a way to tell it from other modrons.
  • Hybrid Monster: A truly unique example. Originally a modron captured by slaadi during the Great Modron March, it was implanted with a red slaad egg and held in one of their nightmarish breeding camps. But something went wrong, given the contradicting nature of the two beings, and the slaad "fused" with the modron, creating, well, Ylem.
  • Freak Lab Accident: One of his experiments involved trying to botch the spell plant growth on purpose while casting it on the razorvine outside his tower. His reasoning: Why not? If a modron can combine with a slaad, why not razorvine and spellhaunt? It didn't work the way he wanted, but the botched spell created Patch.
  • Lawful Stupid: Modrons suffer from this a lot, but Ylem does in a very different way. It strives to find how laws of Sigil work, but he tends to get confused, and mistakes coincidence for certainties. For example, he has deduced that hitting someone in the head is the proper way to greet someone in Sigil (he saw a Harmonium do it while arresting someone) and has also deduced that when a bariaur trips on a loose cobblestone, a tiefling nearby will be robbed (Ylem shares this warning with every tiefling it sees).
  • Windmill Crusader: Nobody has ever been able to purposely create a spellhaunt, and nobody would want to, but Ylem's urge to create knows no bounds. Still, some believe Ylem's idea is No Mere Windmill; Zadara is encouraging him via funding.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: Ylem is smart enough to realize it would no longer be accepted among modrons, so has no desire to return to Mechanus.

Zadara
"Once you've been a god, it's hard to be a mere titan.
—Zadara

A boisterous, hedonistic, larger-than-life female titan turned merchant, Zadara has been forced into hiding in Sigil to escape the wrath of an angry deity, and is determined to make the best of her situation.

  • A God I Am: Before coming to Sigil, she posed as a goddess on a prime world, simply so the inhabitants would worship and lavish attention on her; being 20 feet tall with semi-divine powers made it easy. That is, until a real deity - a powerful one named Skeartim - got upset from her stealing his worshipers. The whole reason she's in Sigil is because he can't get to her there, putting her in self-imposed exile until he forgets about it. And gods have long memories.
  • Attention Whore: Seriously. She loves to flaunt her looks and her wealth - or both at once, given the cost of her clothing and jewelry - in everyone's face.
  • Badass Bookworm: She's a skilled merchant and moneylender in her own right, but she's also a Titan and possessed of huge power. Like the time two Pit Fiends, the most powerful form of devils beneath the Nine, attacked her in her own house and she killed them both effortlessly.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: While not truly evil, Zadara is a Merkhant, and as such is interested in only one thing: money. Thus, she funds quite a few Cage residents who engage in morally and ethically questionable projects, like Ylem (who tries to create a Spellhaunt on purpose) Xideous (who is trying to reproduce and publish the Book of Keeping and Qaida (never know when her interviews will uncover something good...)
  • Drop the Hammer: Carries an enormous Titan-scaled greathammer, which is capable of shooting thunderbolts when she wields it.
  • Gilded Cage: How she views her life in Sigil. It's incredibly comfortable, but, she has no real freedom to ever leave the city.
  • Good with Numbers: Much like any Merkhant, she has the Sect Ability to appraise any gem or art object instantly and accurately.
  • Fiction 500: Any Merkhant worth his salt has a stash that, if collected in one place, fits this Trope. Zadara likely has more than the average Merkhant, being immortal and near-divine.
  • Our Titans Are Different
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Merkhants like Zadara have this mindset, believing you can control the secrets of the universe if you have enough wealth to buy them. Indeed, she loves to flaunt her wealth and handles most problems with bribes or well-paid henchmen... Most, that is. She's more than willing to literally crush anyone foolish enough to starts something physical.
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  1. ↑ Possibly; "abirach" doesn't seem to have a Latin equivalent.
  2. ↑ Fanmade adaptations using 3rd Edition rules or higher tend to give him some levels in Expert.
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