According to "Harbinger House", the Lady can't locate the problem in the city because the Focrux blocks Her from seeing inside the House. As a result, the Dabus wander around confused performing meaningless tasks. My question is, how long has this situation been in effect? According to the same adventure, the Focrux provides the House with all its powers, including the ban on scrying inside and the House being bigger on the inside than the outside. The Planiary (sic), a minuature version of the Focrux, is also the only key that will open the House's various portals. But the Focrux can't have been in operation for very long, or else the Lady and Dabus would have been negatively affected before the start of the adventure. And the Believers of the Source aren't as old as the House, so surely the House once had another key besides the Planiary??? (And does the Planiary get mazed with the Factol in Faction War? Then nobody can use the House's portals?) Once the Focrux is destroyed, the problem goes away (but what about the House's powers?). But the Believers of the Source start making another one, according to the end notes to the adventure, so won't the whole mess start over again if they do? I find it hard to believe that the Lady would let them, once She knew what caused the problem the first time. (Why couldn't She solve the problem by process of elimination? "Let's see - I can see into every building in Sigil except Harbinger House. Ah HAH!")
Another Harbinger House question
Agreed with Eldan on all points. The Lady of Pain isn't omnipotent and her presence doesn't make Sigil invulnerable. The focrux doesn't just blind her, it confuses her, preventing her from noticing her blindness (or her confusion). All she can tell is that there's something wrong in that neighborhood, someone tampering with portals who shouldn't be - but her dabus can't figure out exactly where, and neither can she. The confusion of the dabus in that vicinity is a manifestation of the Lady's own confusion.
The situation has only been in effect for a week or so. "The strange behavior exhibited by the dabus is a symptom of the illness affecting the Cage. Until Nari's threat is ended and Trolan has been returned to Harbinger House, the dabus continue to reflect the unexplained nervousness of the Lady of Pain." So it's only been going on since Trolan escaped and Nari's plan went into effect. The dabus aren't freaking out because of the focrux, which, as you say, has been around for centuries. They're freaking out because something's going on that the Lady doesn't approve of but, because of the focrux, she doesn't know where.
The whole thing won't necessarily start over again when there's a new focrux, not unless there's also a new Nari making mischief. If Harbinger House is simply used as a place to conceal developing gods, it's fine, the dabus won't act strangely, and the Lady won't be the wiser.
The planarity was probably created by some faction or group long before the Believers of the Source, but the Godsmen happen to be the one who own it now. It may be mazed after the Faction War, but someone may eventually retrieve it from the maze. It's possible that there's more than one planarity, but not necessary.
My impression is that only the dabus who are near Harbinger House act barmy (and they get barmier the nearer you get, until there are no dabus at all). Most dabus throughout the city will be fine. Note that page 12 says the PCs should first notice the barmy dabus near Harbinger House.
Generally speaking, it's a bad idea to capitalize pronouns except at the beginning of a sentence. The Lady of Pain's pronouns aren't capitalized in official Planescape books, and even God's pronouns aren't capitalized in the King James Bible, which pretty much invented how the English language talks about God.
It's been a while since I looked over HH, so I don't know how the Focrux is described. So what follows might not be valid, but...
I was thinking that it would be cool if the Focrux was actually created from a blade or piece that was chipped off of The Lady. This piece separated from her would give a poetic tie to why the item creates a blind spot for Her
So basically, Rip and Eldan, your position is that it's not the focrux per se that was the problem - Nari tampered with it? (As for the house getting its powers from the focrux, maybe the planarity could act as a back-up until the believers build another... so maybe that isn't an issue like I thought it was.) O.K. I guess that works. One more question, but not about the house? In the same adventure, it's mentioned that the mercykillers light lanterns at the prison when darkness falls, but it's unclear whether it's meant that they start right when the darkness begins or at antipeak (it mentions "full dark")? Could some clever cutter clear this up? They use it to track time (i.e. "Where were you around eight lantern?") A murder occurs at six lantern, etc...
Logically, I think they'd light lanterns as soon as it starts getting dark. You don't need them during the day, but they're useful throughout the night. Waiting until Antipeak is too long; the night's half over then.
Nari's attempts to pull Sigil into the Abyss and become a god, and releasing the quasi-deities from Harbinger House, have attracted the Lady's attention. The Lady isn't used to not being able to find things that attract her. Nari's like an itch she can't scratch.
I love the idea that the Focrux looks like one of her broken blades.
It's been a while since I last read Harbinger House, but wasn't it described as a sphere which formed spikes when "excited"?
With a small change, you could make a sphere forming long, curved blades, which makes the Lady connection without departing too far from the original description.
Thanks, Rip. I'm trying to correlate the relationship between time as measured by lantern and time as measured by the BP/AP system, and knowing the lanterns start three hours before antipeak will help. (I assume the sons of mercy would continue using the lanterns after they take over control of the prison post faction war.)
I think Harbinger House is very important to add to the mystery of the Lady. Too many people I've known got rabid about "No! The Lady is all powerful! She can do anything! She can extinguish the sun, arm-wrestle Kord, outrun Hermes and then cook the multiverse's best dinner, all simultaneously!" (exaggerated slightly).
Harbinger House gives her a weird and unexplained weakness. It is as weird as you say: if you can see any point except one, and there is a problem originating in a point you can't see, you logically assume it comes from there.
But do you? Think about it like this: your eyes only have one small spot providing high enough resolution to actually clearly make out objects, right in the middle of the visual field. Everything else is a vague, blurry thing. However, you don't even notice how bad your peripheral vision is, because your brain fills in a lot of that on it's own: half of what you think you see is actually partially memory by the brain, and partially patterns recognized and completed based on conjecture. And then there's the blind spot: somewhere, not even far from the middle of your visual field, is a spot where you see absolutely nothing. But you don't notice it, unless you go looking for it. You know those tricks for finding the blind spot by looking at a pair of points on a sheet of paper? Your blind spot does not turn pitch black if you do that. Rather, your brain fills in blank paper instead of a small point, since there's blank paper all around it, so it's the most reasonable assumption.
Perhaps it's similar for the Lady of Pain: she does not realize that there is a blind spot in her vision of Sigil. Perhaps she just sees another house, one in no way remarkable or worthy of attention...