Excerpts from the renowned Circler Jorge Borhe's codice, Pen in Hand.
Well, let us look at Sigil then. Around us exists a cosmopolitan centerpiece for the entire multiverse. Some attribute it to divine will - whether it be the Lady's or some other being's (like Aoskar). Others say that Sigil simply is, and still others claim that it is a necessity, a linchpin to the endless structure, the center of an infinite and centerless latticework. But what actually is Sigil?
Older writings can help us in this regard. It has changed remarkably little throughout the many Revisions of the past. Multiversal valences have torn at other parts of the Planes and remade them whole-cloth, but Sigil stands practically unchanged. We know that factions have lived and died within her walls, but throughout it all the Dabus have tended her razorvine covered streets and whatever militia ran the Lady's Ward has demanded that the wealthy hang lamps from their homes to brighten the streets and drive away unwholesomeness.
So what is Sigil? Sigil is alive, and it is a text. It is a vast semion, a sign, written large across an entire city. We, its people, are merely elements within that text like words within a book or ants within a hive. We do what suits us best, but in so doing we act in the will of the city. We are its lifeblood and sometimes we must be pumped throughout the multiverse to bring nourishment to her. Sigil leaves, breathes, and grows in ways that we cannot begin to understand though I suspect the Dabus know something of it. It is by no means a normal organic creature as some have imagined her - the city streets are NOT flesh, the buildings are NOT organs. Yet, in a way, they ARE. This is one of the fundamental mysteries of Sigil. We have made something larger than ourselves in the City of Doors.
Yet she is also battle-scarred. Once, long ago, in a Revision before our own, Aoskar the Doormaker lived in this city. He was destroyed and his temple ruined. Still later a vanished faction made his the place of his fall their headquarters and after that the doomed temple and the faction both were consumed by the ever-growing ever-renewing city. The shattered temple still exists under the roads and walkways of the city, forgotten to all but the Dabus and the Lady.
Sigil is a staging ground for wars of ideals. When the Elemental Princes began to foment war in the last Revision they tested their ideologies first in little back-alley scuffles in the Hive ward. When the war spilled over to the entire multiverse, agents of either side burst into open assaults on the street. Why don't we remember these times today? The Revision is a hard and dangerous thing, and most of the more mundane of us, those who are not Powers, are afforded no recollection of it when its tides wash over the multiverse. In fact, many of us cease to be thanks to the endless gyrations of the Planar comedy.
However, there are ways to analyze the semions that we have in order to understand the Revisions of the past...
Excerpt from Sigil on a stinger a day by Bleaker factotum Wailing Herod:
If ye think the cage's too expensive then take this little pamphlet from whatever gutter ye found it in and start readin, adam o mine, for within ye'll find the dark to calling Sigil kip without turnin into a jinksword!
First, ye'll have to ken somaught about the place yer tryin ta flop: this ain't no Great Ring burg nor Astral Inn, this is Sigil! Everythin ye've ever looked for ye can find somewhere here on the streets. An if ye can't, there's moren likely a door leadin to it somewheres. Now a course there ain't a way to live on a stinger a day if ye insist on spendin yer time in places like the Lady's or the Guildhall. Ye'll have to settle fer a lesser affair if yer keen on stayin.
Some things ye should know about the wards, though, cutter. First things first. Sigil's got laws some of which may not be all too obvious. Frexample in the Ladys all house-owners gotta hang a lamp from their building to help illuminate the street at night. Second, if ye stray there after dark or even if its not after dark an yer the grubby type you kin expect to draw eyes from all manner of folk. The Harmonium dont take well to people who dont belong lingerin fer too long in the Ladys - might get some bad ideas - so they might chuck ye in a cool down cell fer a few hours just as a matter o course.
Now theres the Guildhall - we got Signers and Sensates there, so yed think itd be alltogether more pleasant but it aint! Yasee thats were every berk goes to shout their screed an as soon as ye enter theyll be beggin ye to shed yer beliefs like a snake sheds its skin! In fact you kin find one o the factions who does that very thing - the Inconstants make their home in the Guildhall ward.
Now yer lookin at the Clerks and Lower wards Id wager. Well theyve got hitches too. In the Lower Ward yer likely to find the Animists workin at the forges alongside a minor faction they call the Believers of the Source. The two do good things in harmony but yed better watch out for the Bleeders what control the Armory in that part o town. As far as the Clerks are concerned yell not find a more hospitable place than the Scholarium - until ye try to steal one o their books or ye spill some o yer kaf onto one. Imagine!
So where does that leave us? The Hive o course. Ah the Hive cradle of life! In the Hive ye kin walk from the Goblin Market down Whisper Way and into the Githzerai ghettos without ever runnin into a member o the Bleeders or the Hardheads. Course there are still some Justicars prowlin around but if ye dont bother them they often wont bother you - the only thing that brings one o them into the Hives is some great broken law that needs rightin an if yer not the addlecove what broke it they tend te ignore ye.
In the Hive yell find the Doomguard overseein work at the Quarry where they cut up the old stones of Sigil to make more buildin material. Dont ask why they do it they got a long winded explanation thats a load a screed either way. They do it cause theres jink in it simple as that!