Planescape: Torment/Headscratchers

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You shall meet enemies three...

Okay so according to Chris Avellone the "enemies three" that were spoken of are Fhjull, Trias, and Ravel. I can understand Trias and Ravel but why Fhjull? He's very incidental to the plot. He may wish you harm, but he's hardly the only character in the game who does. Is there something I'm missing?

  • Just to put this in here, THIS is the official Quote: Deionarra: [to Nameless One] You shall meet enemies three, but none more dangerous than yourself in your full glory. They are shades of good, of evil and of neutrality given life and twisted by the laws of the planes.
  • The entire point is that the characters are "twisted", we have Fjhull (evil but doing good) Trias (good but doing evil) and Ravel (a Night Hag who genuinely loved someone, values freedom but voluntarily stays in a cage... complicated) They all hold pieces of information that you need.
  • Bah, the creator knows nothing. The Nameless One's third enemy is clearly himself - whether in the form of the Transcendent One or just the hell he's condemned himself to. Fhjull isn't even an enemy; he's a convenient source of help that just happens to hate you in a general sort of way.
    • If you kill Trias, which frees Fhjull from his contract with him, you will see a cutscene showing him happy to finally be free. Right then he suddenly remembers that he has met you before but doesn't say anything more. Perhaps something that got cut out at the last minute?
    • This Troper always assumed that it was Trias, Ravel and Pharos, and nothing can convince him otherwise. Oh, and to respond to the one above that claimed that "Him Self" was one of the three, that is wrong. Him Self was mentioned in the prophecy. The full quote went "You shall meet Enemies Three, but none of them more powerful than you self in your full glory..."
      • You mean Pharod, right? He isn't very twisted though.
      • None more dangerous than yourself in your full glory. So yes you in your full glory(the transcendent one.) is one of your enemy but separate from the enemies three. And it can't be pharod because and i quote "Given life and twisted by the laws of the planes.", pharod is mortal, mortals are born OF the prime not OF the (outer)planes, even if we was born in Sigil. The three the developers mentioned fit the prophecy all are planar creatures, and all have been twisted from there natural state by those same laws.
        • SO Trias is a Lawful Good being but has been twisted into evil due to higher goal, Ravel is Chaotic but is fiercely loyal to the (idea) of the Nameless One, and XXXX is evil but does good because of.... Why? and Who? Help me here, I have pondered this question for like a decade. Or maybe it is Fhjull, a extra-planar who does "good" (e.g. help you) because of a curse. But that is a let-down, so lets ignore that reality and replace it with our own! Wait, Pharod loved his daughter and love is a un-evil act. Throw me a bone here!
        • Might you in your full glory refer to the synthesis of the Nameless One and the Transcendent One? The being that you become when you merge them at the end of the game and that talks in CAPITALS sounds pretty dangerous to me, as it is the Nameless One with all the abilities of his past incarnations. This might free the Transcendent One up to be one of the Enemies Three.
          • As neat as that would be... no. Remember that that ending, although the best and most fulfilling one, is just one of the possible endings.
          • This Troper has a vague memory of the novelization that does not exist) that mentions that the unspeakable crime that The Original Nameless One made was a deal with Fhjull. SO maybe the three is linked to the original. Fhjull was the reason that you seeked immortality; Rhavel is the one that gave you immortality and Trias... damn, that was almost something.
          • Trias is the one who keeps you immortal, by lying to you when you meet him in Curst. The SOB. There isn't that better? :)
          • I figured that Fhjull was the one who signed you up for the Blood War, prompting you to see Ravel, who was the one who let you find an escape clause. Trias, by the end, is the only one who actually has the solution to your curse. Their twisted natures are explained above, but their roles in your life seem fairly clear to me.
            • Holy shite, that fucking WORKS! (Oh, and throw in the one who forces you to accept your fate at last - You Self In Your Full Glory)
          • Avellone gets most of his stories cut by the time the publisher wants to ship. It would have been more fleshed out otherwise.
  • As far as I'm concerned, "enemies three" refers to Ravel (the shade of evil), Trias (the shade of good), and the Transcendent One (the shade of neutrality). I base that last one on the fact that, contrary to what is recorded in your journal, Deionarra does not say, "but no more powerful than you in your full glory." What she actually says is, "but none more powerful than you in your full glory." In other words, "you in your full glory" (the Transcendent One) is one of the three enemies in question.
    • But "none" more powerful than you in your full glory, meaning none of these three are more powerful than you in your full glory.
  • Fhjull was much more important in an earlier version of the script, where he was "behind it all" as stated in the Adaptation Decay entry on the main page. Therefore, the original enemies three are indeed Trias, Ravel and Fhjull. In the reworked release script, his role was severely diminished, leading many (myself included) to redefine the three to Trias, the Transcendent One and Ravel.
  • This troper would like to suggest that the shades of Good, Neutrality, and Evil given life and twisted by the laws of this planes are actually the Good, Paranoid, and Practical incarnations. None of them are more dangerous than yourself in your full glory... because they're you.
    • This makes sense. The Good incarnation being good, the Paranoid incarnation representing evil, and the Practical incarnation being the epitome of true neutral as described in the players guide. He does horrible stuff but not to be evil, just because it's a means to an end. This is in contrast to the indiscriminate killing and horrible stuff the paranoid incarnation did.
    • I'd rather say that the Paranoid is Chaotic Neutral and the Practical Neutral Evil. Our current incarnation is absolutely horrified when witnessing actions of the latter in Private Sensorium (i.e. his betrayal of Deionarra). Heck, he even made TNO CRY (I don't know if it happens during evil playthrough though).
  • Something that others might want to consider, Ravel is a Night Hag, a being of the gray wastes, a NEUTRAL EVIL plane. Night Hags are all Neutral Evil as a rule, so Ravel could very well be the enemy representing evil twisted by the planes. Trias is agreed to be good twisted by the planes, and I'm at a loss for neutral twisted by the planes, suggestions welcome.
  • A possible Fridge Brilliance I had today: The canonical Enemies Three are Fhjull, Trias, and Ravel, but it's been pointed out here that the three Incarnations work pretty good as well. Does anyone remember what one of the main laws of the planes is? That means there could be a third set as well! Pharod could be one in the third set, that just leaves two more...hmm...


Xachariah

So what about the archer guy? They mentioned him a bit right before we entered the Fortress, and that's that? I'd've loved to know more about him.

  • He's in the Mortuary actually, if you want to talk to him... (he's kind of... Not-living at this point though so you need Stories-Bones-Tell or Grace's Speak-With-Dead) You don't learn much more but a few tidbits.
  • His name is Xachariah and apparently he was an alcoholic. Also, because Nameless defines Crazy Prepared, you left a few items inside his body to help you out later.
  • I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the coolest part, not only was he an excellent marksman, he was also BLIND!


Total recall?

I'm not all through the game, but is it a plot hole that when you start the game, you don't remember anything because you died, but during the game you can die all you want and you still remember everything?

  • The Practical Incarnation went through a ritual that was going to stop the Amnesia, but he found out that it wouldn't work for X regenerations and was therefore useless to him.
    • Huh ? I don't remember any of that. I always figured the Nameless One remembered stuff because 1) he kept a thorough journal this time around, Memento-style and 2) his team would quickly fill him in (off screen) each time he died. Hopefully without leaving out some inconvenient bits...
      • That was mentioned... once... in the first level. One figures the writers threw that in as a handwave and later decided to make it mythical (and more reasonable). And remember, neither Morte or The Namless One knows that he will remember this time. [Well, unless the dices really hated you during that zombie-battle.]
  • Furthermore, it made him vulnerable to losing his mind for GOOD if something can steal his memory again...
  • Don't they say at one point the amnesia happens randomly?
    • I remember once that death-by-shadow was what took your memory away, which is why they're so dangerous to you.
  • Logically, setting aside other explanations above, the memory loss must not happen after every death. After all, your other incarnations set up puzzles that required you to die in order to pass through them, suggesting they also took it for granted that they could die over and over without excessive risk. In previous incarnations, the loss of memory must have been either random or happened only after a large number of deaths.
  • This is explained (sort of left-handedly) by one of the entries in the Paranoid Incarnation's journal (the trapped dodecahedron). He says that he spoke to a man who told him that after three more deaths, he would stop forgetting things, but he would forget himself (i.e., "die") before that happened. Obviously, the version the player controls is the result.
    • During the end conversation with The Transcendent One, you can say that your mind is weakening with every death, and that eventually you won't be able to think for yourself anymore. Maybe the ritual didn't work, or its mention in the dodecahedron is a plot hole. Then again, I was rushing through the game so I could see the ending on that playthrough and I didn't read that entry.
      • Or possibly the ritual was a form of Equivalent Exchange: Instead of 'wiping clean' your memory with every death, your mental faculties just degrade a miniscule bit with every death.
  • Actually the developers explained why this happens. It's been so long since Ravel's spell was cast that the magic is starting to deteriorate. As the memory loss was part of the spell it now ceases to occur. The downside is due to the spell weakening he's very close to losing his mind for good, hence the game is a race against time for The Nameless One to either die or regain his mortality before that happens.


You should check the skeletons in *my* closet...

Isn't the Nameless One basically a lich? His soul has been removed from his body and placed in an external vessel (the Transcendant One), and until the vessel is destroyed or merges with the NO (reuniting his body and soul), he comes back to life whenever he is killed. Obviously, the fact that he's alive and not undead is a significant difference, but it seems odd that his semi-immortality is so unbelievable to certain people, when it's not entirely unprecedented in D&D.

  • Because he's not undead, and he doesn't lack a soul. His mortality is what was taken from him. There are dozens of ways in the D&D universe to identify liches and other undead, but he wouldn't be outed by any of them. He's unique in that he is a true immortal, and those are exceedingly rare in D&D.
    • And, as far as I can remember, a Lich never had their phylactery conspire to keep them a brain-dead amnesiac for all eternity.
    • Further, from what this Troper remembers of liches in DND, upon death, their body reforms where ever the phylactery is.


Clap your hands if you believe

In the Planes, Clap Your Hands If You Believe is an actual law of physics, allowing you to do things like make a plant grow by willing it to or create a person out of thin air by telling enough people the same lie about your name. Although this is apparently not necessarily common knowledge, so most people wouldn't be able to exploit it, it's not really adequately explained why those people who do know aren't all powerful Reality Warpers.

  • Because usually, said belief goes up against the consensus belief in reality of everybody else nearby. Minor changes like making a plant faintly more healthy by faith is possible if nobody else is around to actively disbelieve it, and The Nameless One is a special case that makes the creation of a stand-in easier, but big changes require more belief than any single person possesses and ends up chafing against the beliefs of everyone else nearby, who are usually in the majority.
    • It also *is* possible to become a Reality Warper in the Planescape setting. See the Nameless One arguing someone out of existence, figuring out that, by believing he can make himself cease to exist, he can, oh, and lets not forget magic which is not just possible but ubiquitous in every D&D world setting ever and ultimately amounts to someone causing their belief about how the universe should be to come to pass through sheer force of will. Most people just don't have the force of personality/ enlightenment to attain this.
    • That said, there is a faction in the setting the game is based on called the Sign Of One who essentially all believe they are Reality Warpers, whose belief literally keeps the world existing. They tend to be extremely solipsistic.
      • The Godsmen are a more "outward" form of this belief, apparently.
        • The Godsmen believe in karma and reincarnation. Their belief is basically that every time you die you are reborn into a new life state depending on how you've lived your life up until this point. They're called 'godsmen' because they believe all beings have the potential for divinity in them, and their goal is to become gods.
    • tl;dr on this subject: The most evident example of how the Clap Your Hands If You Believe effect of the planes works is when Curst plane-shifts into Carceri because of the chaos unleashed in the former area. You have to re-balance the events in that area in order to keep things from further falling apart because everyone's collective understanding of their surroundings is changing and you need to change them back. This means that there's an invisible system of "Paradigm vs Paradigm" that is never truly explained in-game or anywhere for that matter, where the presiding paradigm of a local area's population defines its shape and substance.
    • Further examples: The Hive is a filthy trash-pit because it is where individuals whose minds reflect its surroundings gravitate to, which further influences its state as a filthy pit. If one individual from a different ward decided to go force the Hive into being a clean and tidy ward through sheer force of will, he would need to have to beat out the collective paradigm of the residents of the Hive and, indeed, every individual who has memories of the Hive being the Hive and also be able to believe hard enough to change the physical matter of the Hive etc etc. However, changing small details within the world is fairly easy to achieve by one individual. Creating Adahn through belief or changing something small like how fast a plant grows. To be perfectly redundant: if you tried to make all plants in Sigil grow fast, you'd be fighting everyone's perception of how plants grow. This is also why the Lady of Pain does not allow gods in Sigil or for others to worship her, because of the fear of a collective shift in the paradigm of Sigil as a neutral zone. And furthermore, it is both why gods exist and why the planes exist. Gods are beings of intense will and they can distort reality at will, but even they only to an extent, and on top of that it's implied that gods themselves only exist because they have followers who believe in what alignment/worldly aspects they represent.
    • If I'm understanding this correctly, the Nameless One couldn't have just faked his death and had people advertise this at the beginning of the game, since he didn't ~know~ that group thought could affect reality in this way? Or how would that work out?


Cool swords?

Why, oh why, can't I just use a freaking sword?

  • You can, but there are only a few lying around. The main reason is that the game was averting the usual cliche of a sword being the fantasy weapon. Quite a bit of the game is aversion / deconstruction of usual rpg cliches.
  • Well, it's not like you can use someone's fingernail (or you own ripped off arm) as a weapon in every game, so I'd say, this evens it out at the very least.
  • Enforced: Word of God said no swords, just like they wanted a chaste succubus, an evil asshole angel and an affable devil. Baldur's Gate has plenty of swords if you're wanting!


The ending.

People keep talking about maybe hell won't be so bad with lifetimes of experience. But the Planescape setting has people who die and become petitioners forget everything!, its said in game and even shown through Morte not remembering anything from before he died. ((Although he remembered being the cause of an incarnations death))

Doesn't it send rather a bleak message when you've worked to regain your identity and mortality, and then forget everything in hell.

  • I don't think it's bleak at all. It's making things RIGHT, putting TNO back in the natural circle of life on the planes instead of stagnating in a corner poisoning lives and spawning shadows wherever he goes just so he won't have to face the music. Sometimes you have to man up and take your punishment, and I like to think our hero finally did.
    • No, no, no, I mean the potential amnesia is what is bleak, not being sent to hell.
      • The amnesia is part of the natural order, though. You die, forget the petty details of your mortal life, and are sent to the next stage based on what you did and who you were the first time around. So, like dying, TNO has to finally do what everyone does and stop dicking around.
        • I think his death amnesia is the same general thing as petitioner amnesia. So he'd probably remember.
  • Wait... on further recollection, Deonarria, and the undead died with their memories somewhat intact, so what's going on?
    • Undead aren't petitioners, since they haven't passed on. As for the Nameless One, well, maybe the immunity to death-amnesia still works after getting your mortality back? Not to mention, since there's a fairly good chance of TNO not being Lawful Evil by the end, he wouldn't naturally be going to Hell. Maybe that messed things up?
      • His final alignment won't matter. Remember that the evils of the original self were so great that all the horrific evils of the later incarnations were as nothing in comparison, and the good deeds would never be enough to shift the balance. So even if you end the game Chaotic Good, you've still got a huge tab run up at the Lawful Evil table and they aren't going to let you run out on the check. :P
  • I hear they rushed the release and the various endings were supposed to be more... varied. That's incidentally what the Good/Neutral/Bad Ending music themes were meant for.


Miraculous Morte


Overshadowing Planescape

  • The game is really good, but I just hate how it is more *known* than the original Planescape setting, which I believe is the best D&D setting. Hell, I bet 90% of the people who played it didn't know it was based on D&D at all.
    • If anything, Torment has given Planescape more press than it would have had as an obscure 2nd edition D&D supplement. There's always going to be people who play something brainlessly and never investigate what it's based on, but I found out what Planescape was by playing Torment and ended up reading all the Planescape sourcebooks, including the 3rd Edition Manual of the Planes and extended materials, just for entertainment's sake.
      • Same here, I found Mimir.net, the original Planescape fansite (it's still around, but no longer updates) and thus became a fan of the setting because of Torment. My main regret is that they were so intent on totally subverting D&D cliches that they missed out on a few chances to put things like dirty Hiver dwarves or references to mythology that were a mainstay of the original campaign. It's more a very, very minor quibble, as Torment is my favourite game. I have no idea if that would have improved the game or made it worse, though. There are a couple references to other aspects of the multiverse, like the guy from Kara-Tur who's a zombie in the Mortuary now.


Deal With The Dustmen

  • Are there any consequences to selling your body to the Dustmen?
    • Yes, your alignment changes. Or at least, you get a truckload of alignment points towards a specific one.


Ignus's Alignment

  • I know the character page says that Ignus is Chaotic Neutral rather than Chaotic Evil because "his mind is too scrambled for malice", but isn't wanting to burn down existence for the sake of burning down existence inherently Chaotic Evil regardless?
    • Is fire Chaotic Evil? No, it's just fire. Fire elementals are Neutral in Dungeons and Dragons, too. Ignus is basically a hybrid between a mentally ill human and a fire elemental now. He isn't sane or aware enough to have real intent behind his cruelty or get off on others' pain...he just burns things. And depending on how you read his ramblings he seems to believe that burning things makes them beautiful/sets them free. He's Blue and Orange Morality at worst, if a hideously scary example.


The Good Incarnation's Death

  • If you ask the Good Incarnation how he died, he says that he was hunted down by Shadows on Bytopia. But it's possible to find out that the Good Incarnation is also the First Incarnation, i.e. the original Nameless One. This opens up two problems: 1) The First Incarnation was killed by Ravel to see if her spell worked, not by Shadows; 2) Since no one had died in the Nameless One's place yet, there shouldn't be any Shadows coming after him. The first of these problems can be solved by saying that he was the first incarnation of the Nameless One to arise after Ravel killed him, but this still brings up the problem of having more that one Shadow after him (remember that the Good Incarnation says "Shadows", not "A Shadow".
    • It's possible I'm remembering this wrong, but doesn't he tell you that shadows killed him before you can get him to reveal that he was the first? In which case, he was presumably just lying, not wanting to get into the fact that he is the original incarnation.
      • That does sound reasonable.
    • He was, indeed, lying. Considering how easy it is to miss the conversation path that leads to him revealing himself it's easy to get confused over multiple replays of the game.
      • Yep, he's lying. You need a pretty good intelligence score on the Nameless One to even get that option.
  • How did he know about the shadows in the first place? The first shadow was created by his death (and by extension loss of memory).


Yemeth

  • Who or what is Yemeth? Why is that the last entry on the list of terms used to describe the Nameless One, first in his own tomb and later by the pillar of skulls?
    • Apparently it's a name he went by in a previous incarnation. There's a "Pendant of Yemeth" in a quest that was cut from the game (you can add it back in with mods), but it doesn't shed much light on anything. You just get the pendant from a person that you kill, give it to a fiend, and get some experience and that's it.
      • Actually, that quest does have a fairly significant bit to it, as it explains who Yemeth was and what the pendant did. The pendant is supposed to make its wearer immortal by using the energies of captured souls. Yemeth wanted to be immortal, but didn't want to become a lich, so he made the pendant as an alternative. The fact that it's the last name displayed on the tomb and that the original incarnation said he had committed horrible atrocities, it isn't too much of a stretch to say that Yemeth was the Nameless One's first incarnation. Obviously, though, that would mean the pendant didn't work -- or perhaps he tried to destroy it after realizing that it was kind of on the Evil side of the scale?
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