| Author: Paul Lefebvre I have always thought of Sigil as a rather frightening and disturbing place, partly because there is very little natural life. No crickets, and few birds - aside from caged ones, and executioners' ravens. The air smells, and the atmosphere is claustrophobic. As a cutter travels the city in his day to day tasks, the streets underneath his feet slowly shift, creaking, sending moans of torment throughout the city, barely at an audible level. Dust from the crumbling substance of which Sigil is made is added to the imported dust of a thousand worlds, caking travelers and their belongings. Foul fogs and clouds may spread through areas of the Cage, bringing with them fumes of chemicals, molten steel, and wood-smoke, at their thickest in the evenings. The night itself is more frightening. Except for the Lady's Ward and probably the Clerk's Ward, Sigil isn't exactly safe by night. Walking the streets, one can hear the sinister whisperings of a thousand and one shady beings, hidden in the alleys, conducting illicit business not permitted by the light of day, taking advantage of the fact that the Harmonium doesn't hold as much authority in the brooding darkness of the city. Screams of people being mugged, killed, or tortured can rise over the surrounding buildings at irregular intervals, along with the sounds of crunching bone. The city streets by night are walked by drow (using the city as a shortcut to somewhere else in the Underdark, since teleports don't function but gates do), vampires, wererats carrying out the business of their masters. You can also see cranium rats scurrying through buildings collecting information, tieflings, orcs and other bashers looking for foolish travelers who waited too long to find shelter in order to assault them... and, of course, fiends. The fiends find the cover of night in Sigil to be especially useful. The dead hours of night, when all are in their deepest sleep, are when the fiends perform many of their most intricate and important tasks, hidden by darkness. It is left to the daylight for the residents of Sigil to discover what the fiends have been about. In a place like the Lady's Ward, however, the nights are filled with very different sounds: the sounds of carriages carrying high-ups to and from the all-night parties that are thrown every night. |
