Sigil

[Dia]

Sigil, called the City of Doors and the Cage, is the city located (presumedly) atop the infinite Spire in the center of the Outlands. It is ruled over by the Lady of Pain, a frighteningly powerful and mysterious figure capable of controlling the city's portals and preventing Powers from entering the city.

The city is said to be the fulcrum point for all of the planes, and as a result whoever can control the city controls the multiverse. This is why the city up until recently has been run by competing factions. Each faction believed that if it controlled Sigil, the Center of All, it would be able to control everything there is. As a result, the Lady of Pain kept the Factions (and many other power brokers in the city) in balance.
Sigil is shaped like a torus, or a tire, curved both longitudinally and latitudinally but open along the inner circle so that the other side of the city is visible in the "sky." It is utterly dependent on the portals for all trade, air, water, and resources. The city is often cramped, though at the Lady's whim streets and buildings will occasionally shift, appear, and disappear. The air is often polluted, and acid rain is a problem in the city again because of the lack of easy air flow. Sigil does not recieve any true sunlight, so without special assistance plants are difficult to grow. Razorvine is a notable exception to this rule as it can be found growing at tremendous rates throughout the city. The city is tended to by the dabus, who repair buildings and trim the razor vine.

There is no 'outside' of Sigil and it is sealed against teleportation, planar spells, or any other work arounds to enter the city including epic magic. It's portals or nothing. While it is said to be atop the Spire (and some claim to see it hovering there on a clear day), there has never been a successful attempt to climb into Sigil from below. In a simular fashion no one - or almost no one - has ever returned from jumping out of the 'side' of Sigil. The side of Sigil appears to lead nowhere, and those foolish souls who jump may fall forever, become erased from existence, or end up in an entirely random plane.



The Wards



Market Ward
The cool wind that blows over the smooth, perfect, empty streets of The Lady's Ward is broken by the gigantic, tidal crowds of the Market Ward. A great cacophony of merchants shouting the value and rarity of their wares, street performers dancing nonsensically about, and police patrols standing uneasily at the edge of the crowd, just within The Lady's Ward, are common. The wooden bowls of said performers pass constantly from hand to hand, sometimes full of coins, usually not. The white tents, stands, carts, warehouses, carpets, and all manner of other places from which things to be bought could be displayed take up all of the space the ward has to offer, that isn't already occupied by one of the millions of cutters looking to buy said wares everyday.

The Market Ward's streets are alive with people day and night - as some of it's shops are open at any hour of the dismal Sigilian day. The air in the ward is particularly thin, and dust hangs perpetually in the air, as it never has much of a chance to settle under the constantly trampling herds of feet.

The Market Ward is the smallest - though most densely populated - of Sigil's six wards, and hasn't much to see along the lines of factional buildings, or anything unrelated to Sigil's economy. Its lack of factional buildings doesn't mean it lacks factions, though. See, the Market Ward is home to one of Sigil's three unrepresented Factions, the Indeps - a loosely connected web of free thinkers. The Indeps run quite a bit of the ward's business, especially in the ward's famed Great Bazaar, and keep the place a haven for the city's free thinkers and factionally independent cutters.

Places of note and interest in the Market Ward include it's various eateries, which cater to tastes from all over the planes - namely Chirper's, a lovely little building featuring exhibits of exotic birds and animals from all over the multiverse. Famed advertiser Harys Hatchis, who 'could sell a megaphone to a dabus' calls a small building on the edge of the ward kip, though he isn't often in. While he is rather elusive, his barmy advertisements can be seen winging, crawling, exploding, and shouting themselves out all across the Cage.



The Lady's Ward (never just "Lady's Ward," because this is the Lady of Pain we're talking about) is Sigil's wealthiest district, the home of the obscenely rich and powerful. These so-called Golden Lords are movers and shakers across the multiverse, able to buy and sell entire worlds and species.

The Lady's Ward is also Sigil's center of law and order, home of the City Barracks, City Courts, and City Prison. In a way, it's the antithesis of the impoverished, lawless Hive Ward.

It's a place of broad, clean, well-patrolled streets, mansions, palaces, monuments, and cathedrals. The architecture of The Lady's ward is grand and splendid enough to give the great capitals of the planes (like Yetsirah and Malsheem) a run for their money.





The Lower Ward is the home of Sigil's working class. It is hard to breathe there, polluted as it is from the smoke of industry and smoke from the many portals to the Lower Planes found in this part of the City of Doors. Smog, acid rain, and respiratory diseases are common.

Long before the Great Upheaval, the ward was known as the Prime Ward, as the Sodkillers and Incanterium would force natives of the Prime Material Plane to inhabit the ghettos of this district. A heavily scarred hero used an artifact known as the Shadow-Sorcelled Key to open all the portals to the Lower Planes at once, filling the ward with fiends of all sorts. The ward was devastated, but it was never again used as a Prime ghetto. Its name was changed to reflect the nature of its portals since that incident.

This ward is the home of the Great Foundry, Shattered Temple, and some count the Armory as part of this ward as well.



The Hive Ward, often simply called the Hive, is the poorest of Sigil's six wards, a slum so terrible that in many areas it makes the Lower Planes look good. The muddy, unpaved streets and alleys are choked with garbage, offal, treacherous portals to the Paraelemental Plane of Ooze, wretched homeless people, cripples, corpses, drug addicts, muggers, criminal gangs, prostitutes, and ramshackle impromptu housing built wherever there is room. Sigil's police fear to enter the Hive. In one of the worst areas is the Gatehouse, where the Bleak Cabal need only look out their narrow, barred windows to prove the multiverse is mad. The Slags are a region ruined and tainted by evil due to an incursion by the Blood War, and living weapons of the tanar'ri still lurk among the ruins.

It's not all that bad, however. The Chaos District, where Xaositects congregate, is full of bohemians and artists reveling in the cheap rent and freedom from restrictions. The neighborhood around the city Mortuary is compatively peaceful and clean, albeit a bit dead. Darkwell Court is well protected by xenophobic githzerai, and New Tyr is patrolled by tested warriors native to the desert world of Athas. If there is justice in the Hive Ward, its inhabitants have to provide it themselves.





The Clerk's Ward (known in prehistoric Sigil as the Ward of Masks) is Sigil's center of government and bureaucracy, full of bean-counters, red tape, politicians, advocates, special interest groups, criminals, jink-launderers, off-duty Harmonium, civil servants, librarians, and patient, boring types. It's the home of the Hall of Speakers and the Hall of Records.The Clerk's Ward has another side, too: it's where the Civic Festhall is. Their neighborhood is filled with Sensates, artists, painters, restaurants, opera houses, museums, and brothels.



Guildhall Ward
While the upper class lives in The Lady's Ward, the lower class in the Lower Ward, and the destitute class in the Hive Ward, the Guildhall Ward is the part of Sigil where the middle class makes its home. It's filled with hundreds of ethnic neighborhoods, each attempting to preserve its culture in Sigil's hubbub.

Long ago, before the Great Upheaval, the Guildhall Ward was home to Sigil's guilds - the Freemen, Leatherworkers, Alchemists, and Planewalkers. After the factions were stabilized at just fifteen, they made it their business to drive the guilds out of business.

Most of the merchants in the Market Ward live in the Guildhall Ward. In addition, the Guildhall Ward is filled with such professions that can't be physically sold - solicitors, doctors, schools of philosophy. In the center of the whole thing is the Great Gymnasium, the ward's main attraction, a giant building built around three grand public baths. A soothing building of marble and gold, the Gymnasium is home of the Ward's only faction, the Transcendant Order - who seek unity of mind and body. The Ciphers run about the Ward and the Gymnasium, training themselves to the vigors of balance between action and though, performing the duty of their faction.

Since the Faction War, Sigil's guilds have begun to return, filling the void left by the fleeing factions. How long they'll be able to remain in a city where philosophy and power are one, however, is questionable.

[Dia]

The Lady of Pain

The inscrutable protector of Sigil, the Lady of Pain is more or less a complete mystery. She appears without warning as a robed woman floating a few feet above the streets, her face surrounded by metallic blades. She is also referred to as simply the Lady or Her Serenity, in reference to her perpetually vacant expression. She never speaks, communicating her will only through her servants, the dabus.

The Lady protects Sigil from threats to its safety by controlling all portals within it. This was most recently demonstrated in the Tempest of Doors in which, following the Faction War, she closed all of Sigil's portals, finally reopening them in a reorganized configuration. The Lady's power prevents any god or divine being from entering Sigil, holds off major threats to the city, including the Blood War, and also bars any from entering Sigil by any means except through portals.

In addition to her control over portals, the Lady of Pain can personally deal with those who offend her. Any who are touched by her shadow are flayed, dying in fountains of blood as their bodies sprout innumerable cuts. She can also banish challengers to her Mazes. Those who are mazed are trapped in an extradimensional prison, inescapable except, it is said, by one hidden portal meant to drive the prisoner mad with its inattainability.

The Lady's power is unknown. Since her authority in Sigil is apparently absolute and she seemingly bars even the gods from entering it, many conclude that she is more powerful than the gods, even going so far as to speculate that the Lady is the most powerful entity known.

Despite her tremendous power, the Lady apparently forbids any to regard her as a deity. Those who worship her, even unaware of this disapproval, are typically flayed.

Though some wildly speculate, no one knows exactly who or what the Lady of Pain is, where she comes from, what she is truly capable of, or even whether she is ruler or prisoner of Sigil.

[Dia]

The Sigil Advisory Council is charged with the running of Sigil in the face of the absence of the factions, since the city's guilds do not at present have the numbers or the popular support of the population for the task. The current nine-member council is elected on three-year terms, with the council chair elected for a four-year term herself. The chairman, or chairwoman in the current case, is elected from within the council itself rather than put to popular vote. Voting for the council is run and overseen by the City Courts, with the dabus serving as impartial vote counters, and a single vote is given to every property owner within Sigil, without regards to the amount or value of the property. This last stipulation prevents the stacking of votes by some of the more powerful and wealthy landowners in the Cage such as Zadara the Titan, Shemeska the Marauder, Timmon d’Arlen, and Jeremo the Natterer.

And so, while not truly representative of the city, those paying taxes upon their property are represented considering that by and large their gold supports the city hierarchy. As well, despite the council’s name, it has much more than an advisory role in the City of Doors. All of its declarations and rulings are backed by the City Courts, the agreement of the vast majority of the guilds, and by the City Guard if need be.

The current members of the Advisory Council are:

Rhys, a tiefling sorceress and monk, is the factol of the Transcendent Order. She disappeared during the Faction War, avoiding the assassinations and mazing suffered by the other factols, and returned to Sigil to help create harmony among the post-war guilds and factions. She soon discovered that she had volunteered to become part of the Sigil Advisory Council.

Rhys is a darkly beautiful woman with long pointed ears, dusky skin, reddish eyes, and thick, dark hair. She also boasts a reptilian tail and legs like the hind leg of a horse. Even in calm conditions, her hair moves as if ruffled by the wind; sometimes the strands seem to writhe on their own, like serpents. She wears clothing that allows ease of movement, with a cloak and a staff.



She radiates an aura that draws others to her, a natural charisma that she can use to persuade - or intimidate. She's silent unless she needs to speak, and she usually asks questions that are aimed at making a body think about what's really going on. She's never anything other than calm, and tries to instill calmness in others as well.



Cirily is a firre eladrin and a member of the Sigil Advisory Council. She is a devoted Planarist, believing that most of Sigil's ills can be traced back to the inhabitants of the Prime Material Plane.



Elahassa Merem of the Order of Master Clerks and Scribes
Councilwoman Merem has been a relatively quite and benign presence upon the Sigil Advisory Council for most of her term, swaying towards the positions of Chairwoman Rhys as well as those of Councilwoman Cirily at times. Though she has been relatively fickle in her votes on the council, most think she is assured of reelection, mostly because the other members on the council feel that she is not tied down ideologically to any one of the other members. However, she has, on a number of occasions, quarreled with Councilman Hatchis, more for his views on the Clerk’s Ward, which in a way she exemplifies, than for his voting record.



Estavan is an ogre mage and a prominent member of the Planar Trade Consortium. He may be much older than his apparent years. He has never been seen outdoors in Sigil, though he's appeared in Yeoman, seeking to gain more business there. He seeks to expand his mercantile empire at all costs.



Gregory Holmin
The former Magistrate of the Bureau of Commerce within the Hall of Information under the Fraternity of Order, Holmin is respected among the business leaders of Sigil, but is also, uncharacteristically for a Guvner, something of a hothead and loose cannon at times. He has been a relatively independent voice on the Sigil Advisory Council, with no allegiances to any other particular members except for perhaps Ustisha Cambris, and occasionally Estavan.



Harys Hatchis is a popular and eccentric wizard and promotional expert in the City of Doors. In his mid-forties, Harys has a bald head, a straw-thin body, and a bubber’s crooked grin (although he never indulges). For frugal clients, he designs colorful posters, displaying them in a few key locations; for an extra fee, he’ll cast fly on one of his staff members, who’ll shower the city with handbills. For clients willing to part with the jink, Harys happily devises one-of-a-kind promotions.

After the Faction War, Hatchis sits on the Sigil Advisory Council and runs the Hall of Speakers.




Jeena Ealy
This elderly woman has more popular support on the Sigil Advisory Council than any but Chairwoman Rhys, and for good reason. For decades now, since her adventuring career with her late husband left her rich and drunk upon the sensations of the planes, Jeena has lived in the Clerk’s Ward as a philanthropist and author. Her greatest work, Of Darkest Sigil, exposed to many the truly inhuman conditions within the Hive, and the need to do something about them as a matter of conscience. Her influence in aiding Sigil’s less privileged has been marked since her election. Due to age, it is uncertain if she will pursue a second term after her first ends in a year’s time. She has been adamantly against the positions advocated by Councilwoman Cirily, and has voted time and time again for every piece of legislation put forward by Council Chairwoman Rhys.



Ustisha Cambris of the Builders’ Fellowship
Ustisha has the support of many of the guilds, and along with councilwoman Merem is responsible for all of the established guilds, and most of the new guilds, publically supporting the council. He has been deftly wielding his current position on the Sigil Advisory Council to lower the city tariffs levied against the importation of building materials within Sigil, and has fallen into agreement with Councilman Estavan on this matter.



Utadas Tensar
Considered one of the most honest men in Sigil, he has for years run the most respected and sought after employment service in all the city from his office in the Clerk’s Ward. His honesty and propensity for finding equally honest and skilled labor has given him a good name within the business community and thus a spot upon the Sigil Advisory Council. He has however, indicated that he is likely to step down after his current term.