Planescape 2E Canon Questions

1. Yeah, wanting to depose the Lady is not a such a bad thing. She is a cruel, capricious being that has committed some of the most unspeakable atrocities in Sigil's history. On the other hand, selling someone (even Nilesia) to the fiends and starting a massive war is not the most virtuous way to do it. Rowan was a pragmatist, and had his plan worked, he might be a great hero right now (assuming the fiends didn't conquer Sigil at the first opportunity). He's the villain of Faction War not because he had evil intentions, but because he didn't know enough about the planes to realize that his plan wouldn't work.

2. The Harmonium are not bad guys. They can be cruel and bullying, especially against the indeps, but they really do want to make the Multiverse a better place. That's why they are based on Arcadia: it symbolizes the harmony and order they want to bring to the rest of the Multiverse. There's some confusion from various sources over how viscious they are (such as the absurd, but thankfully non-canon, Harmonium Slavers in Torment.) and how far they are willing to go to advance harmony. Here are the facts: They committed genocide against the chaotic races of their homeworld; they brainwashed and psychologically tortured chaotic people in their re-education camps on Nemausus, (probably) causing the layer to slide into Mechanus; their members have beaten or arrested under false pretenses scores of Indeps, just for daring to be chaotic; and the average harmonium member would be horrified to learn any of this. They aren't bad people, by and large, it's just that some seriously bad apples are able to use their own philosophy against them.

3. The Signers sure thought it was possible. It depends on how the Lady killed him (if She did at all). If Aoskar entered Sigil, then she may well have flayed him outright (and you don't come back from being flayed by the Lady). On the other hand, she didn't flay Vecna when he came in and started making a mess of things, so maybe she can't flay gods (or she just didn't feel like doing it to Vecna). Either way, this is dependent on the theory that Aoskar actually did enter Sigil (there has never been anything to indicate that she has power outside of the Cage), plus it doesn't explain why she bothered to kill millions of his otherwise innocent worshipers in the process (besides spite). More likely, she just killed most of his worshipers (who may have all been living in Sigil) and let Aoskar die from lack of belief. That's not how the story goes, but the story is centuries old there are bound to be some exaggerations in it. If Aoskar died from lack of belief, then he can come back once he regains that belief. Given what happened to his previous congregation, however, it's going to be hard to find new worshipers.

Well, the Nameless One couldn't, but I don't think that's a fast rule. At least, I've never seen it written anywhere.

Who says she killed any of his worshipers? She killed Aoskar and destroyed his temple. I'm sure there was some collateral damage in the Shattered Temple District, (In the Cage said none of those present at the destruction survived, and his high priest Imendor died as well) but there's nothing that says she killed "millions," or even hundreds. Just everyone who happened to be at the temple at the time, whether they worshiped Aoskar or not.

In truth, most of Aoskar's worshipers simply found other gods when their god went away, though some worship him still (In the Cage, page 54: "The dabus no longer worship Aoskar. Many other followers also abandoned the god... his followers are very few and very peery...") Most followers of Aoskar fear the Mercykillers more than they fear the Lady.

It's clear that Aoskar didn't simply die from lack of belief, because he never ran out of believers. Whether he was flayed, drawn and quartered, exploded, or simply cast bodily into the realm of the dead isn't clear.

No, there's no canonical description of Aoskar's corpse, except that it's "withered." There's a figure of Aoskar on page 121 of The Factol's Manifesto, though. I think he ought to have two faces, like the Roman god Janus and like the Aoskian hounds.

As a side note re: the Indep plague. From what I recall of the original material on that it wasn't because of a violation of any decree. The first occurrence of the Indep plague was during/immediately after the Great Upheaval. The Indeps outnumbered *every* other faction to the tune of 100 to 1. Then - they had a massive population drop for... mysterious reasons. That was the Lady.

The more recent resurgence of the plague is another matter. They weren't in violation of anything other than the Harmonium's cranky - at first. The Indeps were noticing missing members (*ahem* brought in for 'questioning'). The rumor began going around that there was a return of the Indep plague from the Upheaval. After the rumor started spreading, the Indeps noticed that there was actually *something* going through their ranks in addition to the persecution they were already enduring.

Given their current enemies it may not even be something from the Lady - it may be an enemy using that as a cover (Estavan? Hardheads? Ex-Mercykillers?). Or it may be from the power of belief. It's certainly not the same sort of widescale attack as that of the Great Upheaval. As a sidenote, the plague can be treated in Tradegate.

Again, this is pretty much from memory here from back when I was researching the Indeps for one of my characters, so there may be a few off points.

I think that's kind of like saying a hypothetical god of "red" is worshipped by other gods of colors because red is such a bright color.

As I interpreted it, the plague never went away entirely. It struck them very hard in the first years after the Great Upheaval, and then continued at a much lower level of virulency in order to keep the population of Indeps at what Her Serenity considers to be the appropriate size.

Regarding Rowan Darkwood, I must say this: it really depends on how you view alignments. What matters most, the means or the end? Because even if Darkwood's intent was to rid the world of a great evil (which, quite honestly, sounds like a load of bollocks to me, since the guy was first and foremost a Taker and, despite once being a clueless sod, knew perfectly well that the Lady posed no threat unless provoked... he just wanted to take Sigil), he went about it in such a way that could not have given him karmic cookie points. You just don't pretend to fall in love with somebody, sell them into slavery, and then start a bloody civil war in a major metropolitan city, all intentionally, and expect angelic blessing. It's evil, even if done to stop Asmodeus himself.

The Spire is so tall it bends space and time. You could try to fly to Sigil, but you'd always be far away from it.
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Way to give a indepth explanation! >:E

I think that the best way to reconcile the Primer and the PSCS is by saying that you end up in a random plane after falling for an infinite amount of time.