The Broken Reflection

Character: This place seems so familiar, but in a strange way. The angles don’t add up to 360, the parallel lines don’t always remain at perfectly even distances. Over there, I see my house! No, it was here a moment ago… now where am I? Maybe if I ask for help, but no, no one’s out and about, all of the stores are closed. Where am I? This can’t be Sigil. Where am I?

Ruler: A nameless modron (pl/rogue modron/?/?) is the undisputed ruler of the Broken Reflection, an inauspicious position considering that that there are only two permanent residents of the demiplane. The modron, having long since lost its grip on reality, has fashioned itself a costume of blades and drapery from scraps found around the city and has fashioned itself into a surrogate Lady of Pain. Oddly as the creature slips further and further into this persona, the more the persona becomes it. After centuries of imprisonment the being never speaks and its feet never touch the ground, borne by some invisible levitative force. It seems to have control over the rare portals in the city and may be responsible for the magical accidents which strand travelers in the demiplane serendipitously. Whether or not it has the power to slay beings with merely its shadow or imprison rabble rousers in extra-dimensional Mazes have never been tested.

The being’s agenda, if it has an agenda, is alien and unknown. If it has plans for its realm it has not revealed them to anyone.

Description: Floating through the ethereal amidst a sea of demiplanes and other pocket worlds, the Broken Reflection is a vague cloudy shape on the edge of vision. Finding an entrance into the plane deliberately is a difficult task, one that can take many centuries to complete. More often the demiplane is reached by accident, a trip to Sigil having gone awry somewhere in the magical web that powers the multiverse.

Those who find the Broken Reflection by mistake, carried there on a magical twist of fate, are often unaware of the accident. The interior of the demiplane is a massive city that stretches far into the distance in all directions, even up. The city, built on the inside of what appears to be a massive torus, is built in an architectural style studded with blades and sharp spikes, adorned with images of a female head stuck through with blades. Sound familiar? Thought it might.

Yes, the Broken Reflection is a broken reflection, a distorted mirror image of Sigil, the city at the center. It takes a few minutes for those who believed themselves on their way to Sigil to realize that they are off course. The streets and buildings, while superficially similar to the edifices of the Cage are strange and twisted, seeming somehow less real than the buildings wich they are analogous to. A native of the Cage would find himself following familiar landmarks all the way into a hopeless labyrinth of uncertainty. The city is nearly empty save for shadowy, ghostly shapes that wander the streets, flitting into existence for only seconds before dissolving back into nothingness.

Besides the modron masquerading as the Lady of Pain, the Broken Reflection has one more inhabitant. The other native is an ancient parai of immense knowledge. The creature lacks a name, and its memories of the past are corrupted and useless, but its knowledge of current events in Sigil and beyond are unparalleled. It is said that the parai has found the secret of making the phantom books that flit into existence in the same way that the phantom citizens do into solid real tomes. Anything printed in Sigil is known to the parai who has nothing to do with his time but read and stay out of the way of the faux-Lady of Pain that patrols the streets. It has lost its drive for perfection and will usually not attack newcomers to the demiplane unless provoked.

Neither the modron nor the parai can leave the demiplane through any currently known means.

Services: There are few services to be found in the Broken Reflection. There is no food in the entire demiplane and the various shops are empty of merchandise and merchants to sell said nonexistent merchandise. The only thing that can be bartered for in the demiplane is information, the parai’s knowledge of current events in Sigil being completely unparalleled. The lawful being has no use for jink or most material possessions though especially rare items or information unknown to the parai could be used in lieu of payment. Also, any information that could lead to the parai’s freedom from the demiplane will be paid for handsomely.

There and Back Again: There are few exits from the demiplane. A few portals exist in the city, but they are invisible and may be keyed to items that are not found within the demiplane. The easiest way to leave is to become hopelessly lost in the city, but this method is not always reliable. After days of traveling in circles until a traveler has completely lost all relation to landmarks and streets he may laps into a catatonic sleep and awaken to find himself in Sigil. Why this works for some but not all travelers is unknown.

The Dark: There are many theories proposed as to the origins of the Broken Reflection and its exact nature.

One theory maintains that the Broken Reflection was originally one of the Lady’s infamous Mazes, designed as a punishment to hold the parai and the modron for some past crime.

The trapped parai has a number of theories, not the most outlandish of which is that the Broken Reflection is merely a dreamscape, the lost and forgotten dreams of Sigil itself. In this interpretation the “flicker people” are the people of Sigil temporarily flickering over into the City’s dream.

Another theory says that the Broken Reflection is a replacement Sigil, a spare in case something world-shattering happens to the original and the multiverse is left without one of its fundamental parts. Perhaps the modron is being groomed to replace the Lady in the case of such an eventuality.