Potential Article - Killing the Lady of Pain?

Oh, that would be interesting. Imagine them wandering into Sigil, suddenly finding themselves free. Meanwhile, the Lady's killer is the first to be mazed by the new Lady -

Makes me think of Gaiman's Endless, where a new Endless can take the place of the old and could undo the curses of the previous incarnation. I mean, even if the Lady is killed there could still be a Lady taking Her place...

@Wicke That makes sense, though what I want to explore is an overview of options the first time around. I'm also wary of devoting too many issues to the idea - heh, one thing to kill a sacred cow and another to make it into pate.

I also really want to look at ramifications - even more than Dead Gods this is planes shattering, and personally should be heartbreaking. To succeed is to suffer, either because you slaughtered the most unique being there is or the ensuing gods war that tears the Multiverse apart.

Though if someone had an amazing campaign or adventure where the Lady's death was a possibility in the future it would be worth considering.

@Zimzarim - that makes sense, figuring out motivation is important. Part of my reason for wanting to do this is to challenge the "Because she was never statted and that annoys me" crowd. There should be motivation, narrative, and ultimately sacrifice to such an act.

Even if She's three ratatosk's in a dress, exposing this charade will have repercussions.

I definitely want in-character stuff, though I tend to want a clear OOC explanation of an organization with in character side bars and intros. The whole article would be possibilities and plot seeds alongside ramifications.

I'm still not sure if we should have any stats, and if we did we would definitely want multiple versions reflecting different options. Going back and forth on this...

Yeah, makes sense. Plus I don't think you could get people to agree on any of the stats, save maybe for the three ratatosks one.

Any help on the seven special novels of Naomi Catella would be appreciated.

Going with Naomi's novels as a framing sequence, we have the following plausible ways to kill the Lady:

1. Make it someone's heart's desire and send them onto the Infinite Staircase.

2. Pull a Vecna, assuming we can come up with a plausible reason for Vecna's plan to work. The adventure states that by twisting Ravenloft, which is a transitive plane, as well as not being a god at the moment of entry, he was able to enter Sigil...feel like this needs some more detail to make sense.

3. Utilize a piece of the Lady (assuming that's what the Focus was, which I think we should state as a possibility) against Her.

4. If the Lady is a vestige that escaped the non-existent state of those spirits, another vestige that is created in the same manner as Her and also escapes could theoretically harm her.

5. Utilize the Mazes, reverse them so She is trapped. This might relate to the idea of Sigil as a Cage.

6. Utilize the Sigil Spell in some manner, perhaps at the point Rowan Darkwood almost used it. Since chronomancy is banned in Sigil, you would have to activate the spell outside of Sigil.

7. Aoskar resurrected might threaten the Lady of Pain. Not to mention that tree created by the Greater Unknown might be a weapon.

The above proposals aren't ones we have to use, I'm not married to the vestige idea for example as it doesn't utilize any Planescape canon at all.

I'd really like ideas that tie in something in the actual setting books in a creative manner.

Heh, was thinking that myself.

Weren't there some other Multiverse destroying threats in canon over the years? Perhaps creatures from a previous creation or something that breaks time and space?

ETA: Another option would be to successfully shift the Spire to another Outer Plane, as it would likely unbalance the forces that empower Sigil and thus the Lady.

I like the idea of Minotaurs and mazes. Combined with Djhek'nlarr and perhaps the work of Baphomet and Pale Night (they share a layer) I can almost see this succeeding.

Other possibilities:

Speaking the Last Word to the Lady.

Utilizing the Kamerel reflecting Sigil and the Spire in their mirrors.

Rip hypothesized the Imaskari created Sigil, or rather they thought they did. But perhaps there is some means of killing her if we go back in time?

From Pages of Pain: The idea that Her secret history, unknown even to Herself, is what keeps Her in control and the powers out. So telling Her that history would weaken and unbalance Her.

The Baatezu are trying to replicate Sigil - perhaps they are making a "voodoo doll" (no offense to actual practitioners of Vodoun intended) of the city? Or maybe this Sigil copy relates to the reason that Maladomini continually sees new cities arise and old ones abandoned?

Draft of Introduction

"Has there ever been a Sigil without the Lady of Pain? Or a Lady who was not ruling the City of Doors? If anyone has knowledge of such a time, they haven't seen fit to share it with the rest of the Multiverse, and the rest of the Multiverse hasn't found any evidence of when the Lady wasn't bound within the torus of the Cage. Whether its hieroglyphs chiseled into ruins of Pelion or pages stolen at great risk from the Tower of the Archanoloths, one finds depictions and references to Her Serenity alongside the stories of those who sought to put her in the dead book and suffered death or imprisonment for their hubris.

As the ages have worn on, there have been more and more fools added to the annals as factols, archmages, and even gods who have sought to murder or supplant the Lady of Pain and suffered her wrath. Others, attempting to learn from the failures of those who came before, even now plot on how they might succeed in taking the life of Her Serenity. Some are driven by madness and greed, others seek such means only as a precautionary measure should Sigil's caretaker ever seek power beyond that which is granted to her within the boundaries of the Cage. One should expect every god and planar lord to have some idea of how they might attempt to commit this ultimate crime, along with theories on what might cataclysmic repercussions might result from such an act.

It would take a library, possibly an infinite one, to hold all that's been said of this subject. Not to worry though, most of what's been said is nothing but screed penned by arrogant idiots and stark raving madmen. Lucky that you found me, seeing as I've already sorted the wheat from the chafe and the dross from the ore..."

Justice or Vengeance

The Lady has flayed a lot of people, and thrown even more into the Mazes and possible other realms of imprisonment, with the number of victims ever increasing. Mind you, a few years might pass without Her Serenity casting her shadow over the unfortunate, but there are enough disappearances of unruly visitors in Sigil that one can only surmise that at least a few of these miscreants were mazed by the Lady.

Of course, there have been times where such punishment might not have been wholly deserved, depending on how you look at things. The Communals, for example, were a faction that wanted every possession and power in the Multiverse to be shared. As everyone expected, they vanished when they dared to proclaim that even the Lady must divide her power among the masses. As foolish as their ideas were, one might argue that their hearts were in the right place and their fate - whatever that may have been following their disappearance - was an unnecessarily cruel one where a warning might have sufficed.

Perhaps a more outright example would be those involved in the cult of Trolan the Mad. Trolan, possibly one of the few Believers of the Source to actually reach divinity, decided to create a religion around the Lady of Pain prior to his own supposed ascension. Many of these deluded adherents decided to enter Sigil in order to praise the Lady within what they took be the divine realm of Her Serenity. While in the midst of their worship, the Lady appeared, her shadow stretching out to turn the streets thronged with her faithful into an abattoir. Many of those killed, if not all of them, were just lost or gullible people looking for an answer in a Multiverse that refuses to provide one. Were their fates truly deserved?

Of course, any inevitable or paladin thinks twice about trying, let alone executing, the Lady for her crimes. After all, its now known that Factol Nilesha of the Mercykillers (now divided into the Sodkillers and Sons of Mercy) wished to punish the Lady for her crimes, an obsession that led to the young woman's downfall and disappearance. (Rumor has it her lover Rowan Darkwood, himself punished for attempting to usurp Her Serenity, sold her into slavery in one of the Lower Planes.) Even gods of justice and lords of order who might think of punishing the Lady have only to look to the Shattered Temple and the corpse of Aoskar as a reminder that even if they could gain entrance to the Cage, the Lady will not be easily taken.

However, justice is the provence of the rational and the same cannot be said for vengeance. Many people have lost loved ones to the Lady, or seen her sentences result in the dissolution of their cherished factions. Within Sigil itself, there are those who seek revenge against Her Serenity, though how they hope to achieve such a thing varies between them. The Grixxit, perhaps the last true member of the now defunct Expansionist faction, believes that by closing off portals she can weaken the Lady. Gentaka Ela, an Athar elf whose younger brother who numbered among those members of Trolan's cult murdered in Her Serenity's shadow, simply prays while kneeling upon the roots of the Lost's sacred tree replanted at the base of the Spire.

Means

1. Make it someone's heart's desire and send them onto the Infinite Staircase.

2. Pull a Vecna, assuming we can come up with a plausible reason for Vecna's plan to work. The adventure states that by twisting Ravenloft, which is a transitive plane, as well as not being a god at the moment of entry, he was able to enter Sigil...feel like this needs some more detail to make sense.

Though we've seen gods thrown out of Sigil, what if one could become a god of portals in Sigil?

3. Utilize a piece of the Lady (assuming that's what the Focus was, which I think we should state as a possibility) against Her.

4. If the Lady is a vestige that escaped the non-existent state of those spirits, another vestige that is created in the same manner as Her and also escapes could theoretically harm her.

5. Utilize the Mazes, reverse them so She is trapped. This might relate to the idea of Sigil as a Cage. Might relate to minotaurs, Baphomet.

6. Utilize the Sigil Spell in some manner, perhaps at the point Rowan Darkwood almost used it. Since chronomancy is banned in Sigil, you would have to activate the spell outside of Sigil.

7. Aoskar resurrected might threaten the Lady of Pain. Not to mention that tree created by the Greater Unknown might be a weapon.

8. Drain sigil of its magic utilizing Incantifier magic.

9. Utilize the spell in the Book of Keeping that grants success in any venture.

10. Utilize the magic of mirrors, like the kamerel.

11. Release a multiverse destroying power that can murder the Lady.

12. Speak the Last Word, or perhaps Word of Freedom, and kill/release the Lady.

I plan to include ramifications, though a lot of what I've been posting is just me babbling. There's a lot that can be shortened so that we're left with an ideally 7-9 page article.

Those are some good questions, I really like the last one. Imagine if the Lady, after her death, was resurrected through belief as a god?

Following in Vecna's Theoretical Footsteps

According to the events of Die Vecna Die!, the archlich enters Sigil by controlling the power of Ravenloft's Mists whose tendrils are argued to be capable of kidnapping anyone from any part of the Great Wheel. Additionally, the hotly contested adventure claims that at his moment of entry Vecna was not a god. We could assume that he was a proxy to his own burgeoning divinity, that it is only after he takes a step into the Cage does his divinity wax to its fullness within his own being.

Even if we took all of this at face value, and accepted that a group of adventurers aided the Lady of Pain in ousting the Whispered One from Sigil, the conclusion of the adventure is that the reality of the Great Wheel is rewritten and that few, if anyone, remembers the events leading up to the cataclysmic encounter that almost granted the Master of the Spider the Throne the Lady's own Throne of Blades as well as the means of controlling the entirety of the Multiverse.

So did these events in truth take place, with only those of us within the sheltered confines of Earth privy to them given our unique relationship to the Great Wheel? Did Vecna receive a unique understanding of magic through communication with a mysterious entity referred to as the Serpent? While it is only one possibility out of many, here is what at least some scholars and many Multiversal guardians believe:

Vecna retains a patchwork of memories of the now overwritten timeline, but even he is not sure if these visions possess any veracity. The Serpent, if it was ever more than a manifestation of his own thoughts and desires, no longer speaks to the Whispered One.

His confusion about the rewritten past is manifested in the Cavern of Insight, a massive underground realm hidden deep within the depths of Pluton's color leeching soil. All the eyes in cavern are turned toward its center, where a rough hewn altar supports a mummified hand holding up a single desiccated eye. The altar, itself a bound elemental, rotates, with whisper of grinding stone, returning all the gazes directed at it. The entire site radiates a malevolent divinity churning with frustration toward itself. This because the entire Cavern of Insight is an avatar of the Dark Lord of Secrets. Vecna hopes that somewhere in the recurrence of self examination the Cavern provides the truth of what happened to him might possibly be found.

Anyone seeking to follow the path that Vecna took toward defeating the Lady of Pain should attempt to wrest control or otherwise glean information from the cavern. If one can gain some knowledge of the magics Vecna utilized, along with the lich god's own past, without going insane from entering the labyrinthine self reflection of a god, one could then take steps to reenact the deity's plans with oneself in his place.

As Raistlin took the place of Fistandulus, so might an enterprising magus also utilize chronomancy to enter the past of Oerth and take over Vecna's intended destiny. (One might even steal the Bloodstone from either of these Black Robe mages, though take heed that entering Krynn's past might shunt one into a divergent timestream.) Be warned that to travel into Oerth's past is to invite the attention of the mysterious Monitors of Infinity, temporal guardians “drawn from all places in Time.” Many of Oerth's deities possess either the means of traveling through time or the knowledge of chronomancy, and its almost certain one of those gods is Vecna himself. Attempting to spy or interfere with his past is likely to lead to a confrontation with an avatar of the Maimed God as well as the avatars of several other gods including Istus, the Balkunish goddess of Fate and Lendor, the Suel god of Time, Cyndor, the Oerik god of time, continuity, and infinity, and mad demipower Zagyg, servant to the god of magic Boccob. One artifact that may aid in escaping the attention of these deities is the Pin of Oghma, which the god of knowledge gave to a loyal follower tasked with guarding another artifact known as the Cyrishad, a book that would convert all who read it into a worshiper of Cyric the Mad. The Pin obscures its wearer from the sight of the gods, though whether an artifact designed to hide its owner from the eyes of Toril's deities would even work in past of Oerth is questionable. Even if one manages to obtain the Pin and discovers its efficacy extends to Oerth's past will still have to contend with the quarut inevitables, constructs tasked with hunting down anyone who damaging the timestream. One may be able to negotiate with them and even obtain their aid if Vecna has already been killed off, for to preserve much of Oerth's history one must exist in the archlich's place and play his role in history.

Still the risks and continual battle against the guardians of Oerth's timestream might be worth it, for if Vecna falls, perhaps his mysterious benefactor the Serpent might take on a new apprentice in his place who might succeed where the Chained God failed. For the lich's replacement, however, reliving the steps of Vecna's life would be gauntlet through history given that the varied deities of time and magic would continually seek to correct the timestream or at least eliminate the ones who corrupted it.

There exist other means of time travel whereby one might enter the past of Oerth with less interference than if one directly utilized the magic of chronomancy, though each of these possess their own dangers and mysteries. The first is Tovag Baragu, a site near the salt lake Udrukankar upon the world of Oerth. Tovag Baragu consists of five concentric circles of seemingly indestructible standing stones arranged into roughly hewn, rectangular arches. Each of these portals leads either to another point in the river of time or to another possible world. Vecna himself sought to use Tovag Baragu and establish himself as a greater power, but before he could do so he was thwarted and cast into Ravenloft, the Demiplane of Terror. Defeating him also damaged the archways, making their use even riskier than before. Attempting to navigate the gateways is a dangerous undertaking in itself, for one could easily become lost in time or left stranded in a partially formed reality. If one can find the right gate or set of gates in spite of the risks it is conceivable that one could snatch Vecna's own destiny from his grasp.

Those desperate or brave might also attempt to enter and alter time via the Nine Sisters in Greyspace, quasi-stars which radiate dead magic, exist in a place of reversed gravity, and together function as a gateway through time. Anyone attempting to usurp Vecna's place in the timestream or control the temporal powers of the Nine Sisters for any reason at all should expect considerable opposition, to the extent that entire armadas recruited from the shell's spacefaring companies might be arrayed against them.

Finally, the demenses of the quasipowers Heward and Murlynd contain doorways leading to varied points in space and time, though trying to convince them that your schemes of following in Vecna's footsteps is to their advantage might end your mission right at their doorstep. It's far more likely that you'll have to eliminate both of these deities before you can take advantage of the time traveling properties of their homes.

Preserving Verisimilitude

For all the cleverness required and all the obstacles one must face in pursuit of this goal, and the vast differences in scale, killing the Lady of Pain bears clear similarities to assassination attempts carried out against any high standing personage in possession of considerable personal power.

Of course, with the Lady, one must realize that control of Sigil is a goal shared not only by archmages and the heads of world spanning organizations, but pantheon heads and archfiends as well. As such, one should not expect to simply level up, get access to some high powered items and spells, and waltz into Sigil and put the Lady in the dead book. If it were that easy, one should expect that the Lady would have been murdered eons ago.

Now you may have your own stats for the Lady that you know your own players will enjoy coming up against. That's fine, this article isn't here to tell you how to run your game, but if you're going by the default canon of what Sigil is and how its existence extends back into the Primordial ages, you should present a reason why the Lady suddenly finds herself so vulnerable to such conventional means when she never has been before. Of course, the multiverse is a big place, so it's definitely conceivable that an artifact might enable you to negate her transcendent nature. (Or perhaps there is an artifact that needs to be destroyed, similar to how destroying the shield generator on the moon left the Death Star vulnerable to the Rebels' star fighters.)

No matter what, anyone who attempts to kill the Lady should realize it is a big deal. There will be those who seek to aid the PCs, as well as those who want to steal their method for themselves. Others, such as the Harmonium, will oppose them on principle, and this is a good time to mention they have a whole planet of Ortho from which to draw resources. No matter the outcome, once you decide to walk this path expect gods to die, hearts to break, souls to be cursed and worlds to burn.

Have another Power Fight the Lady for You

There is a standing tradition that anyone who goes up against the Lady of Pain, even if they are a god, ends up either dead or imprisoned. Perhaps those who seek to kill the Lady of Pain should then use a deity as distraction, a weapon turned against Her Serenity at a critical moment. Here are two likely candidates who might either be able to get the job done or at least severely wound the Lady before they are destroyed. They might also survive long enough to convince the lesser power in the Automatic Scribe to aid them in battle. Of course, should any of these deities succeed, its unlikely the PCs will be able to wrest control of Sigil from a god unless they made some kind of preparations beforehand.

Aoskar

As the god of portals, Aoskar was able to convince even some dabus to worship him and Fell to become his proxy. So great was the association of the god with the portals of Sigil that some began to see the Lady as nothing more than an aspect of Aoskar. If he were to be resurrected, its likely that belief in him would soar, perhaps exceeding his previous level of worship. Once more planars and primes across the Multiverse might believe him to be the true master of Sigil, and in a Multiverse where belief is power the god might be able to use this to his advantage.

Lynkhab

Lynkhab is a former Abyssal Lord who attempted to become something more abstract but at the last minute cowardice struck and she refused to let go of her corporeal form. Now unkillable in the Abyss, she searches after those who might do her in and thus complete her ascension into a goddess. If one could bring her into Sigil via the Harbinger House, then perhaps hiding her near the focrux until the moment is right, the Lady killing her would make Lynkhab a goddess within the confines of Sigil. Lynkhab is a creature of seduction and desire, which begs the question if she might be the Lady of Pleasure that could successfully counter the Lady of Pain?

In Dragon #359, the last printed issue of the magazine, “Who or What is the Lady of Pain?” was listed as one of the great unsolved mysteries of D&D. And while the truth of her identity has never been revealed, speculation on the subject has been accompanied by the questions of how you might kill her, what the ramifications of your actions might be, and who would aid you or try to stop you.

In this article, we look at all these questions and draw upon numerous ideas from various discussions that have taken place over the years, publications relating to the Great Wheel cosmology, and various ideas that we put together in preparation for this article over at Planewalker. Within these pages one will not find a sure fire way to kill the Lady of Pain. Instead, we'll offer up several methods you can tailor to your campaign, as well as supporting details for you to build a campaign around.

A lot the ideas presented here draw on adventures, campaign boxes, and varied setting books published under the Planescape banner. In order to present this information in a clear fashion, there are many spoilers within this article, not the least of which include the endings of the adventures Harbinger House and Faction War. If you are worried about spoiling some aspect of Planescape for yourself, definitely stop reading here. Otherwise, if you're ready, lets move onto the main event...

The Importance of the Lady of Pain

While we'll investigate the ramifications of killing Her Serenity in a later part of this article, it is important to realize why the Planescape setting would require such a mysterious entity that was never statted in any D&D publication.

Planescape is designed as a setting where you can travel the planes from the moment you finish creating your characters, no matter what level you start them at. Given that low level characters can't traverse the planes on their own, the means of travel must be provided and a reason must exist that the powers don't seize it for themselves. Thus we have Sigil, a portal filled metropolis where the gods and planar lords cannot enter and invaders and usurpers find conventional power ineffective at hurting its guardian. The safety of Sigil, as well as the reason that no major player in the Cosmic Game can lay claim to it, is dependent on the Lady of Pain.

The creation of Sigil and the identity of the Lady were never fleshed out, with the mystery of who she was and if she could be killed left to the individual DM, game designer, or author. Of course, while no definitive answers were ever given, there were a few choice bits that showed that while the Lady might possess an incredible amount of power she did in fact have exploitable weaknesses.

Going with those ideas, and staying relatively faithful to how the Lady was presented in the setting, we'll look at some creative means by which one might go about setting up a campaign that culminates in either the death of the Lady or the PCs saving Her Serenity from such a fate.

Use the Book of Keeping

In the Planescape Monstrous Compendium, we learn of the Book of Keeping, a tome said to contain knowledge pertaining to the yugoloths. Only usable by those magi of the profession of conjuration and summoning, the book contains the names of several greater yugoloths. There are at least four copies in existence, though their whereabouts are unknown. Within this precious Book there is a recipe for a potion, requiring a shred of an archanoloth's heart, that is supposed to grant success in any venture the caster undertakes. The potion's true efficacy is unknown and as far most of the Multiverse is concerned untested if not completely unfounded. Though there is always that nagging question - what if it works? And if you are guaranteed success in any venture, then nothing could stop you from killing the Lady and gaining control of Sigil.

Then again, the Book of Keeping is about the yugoloths, and when anything involves the 'loths its best to assume there exists at least a dozen traps and a hundred lies around even the tiniest kernel of truth. Not only will you live longer, but you'll be keeping your eternal soul safer as well. The yugoloths might have written the book themselves, with lies designed to entrap the unwary and snares to lure even the most stalwart paladin over to the side of Evil. No fiend enjoys being bound by the hand of what to them is a lesser being, but the yugoloths will suffer such humiliation if it means furthering the darkness the lies within so many hearts across the planes of existence. A yugoloth will die today if it brings Everything closer to the triumph of Evil tomorrow. It is then entirely possible that the potion places the imbiber under the control of the 'loths, unto and beyond their death. After all, anyone able to find all the ingredients and complete the recipe must be a being of considerable resources and perhaps personal power, and would thus be a useful pawn on the board of the Cosmic Game.

If one seeks to use the potion to help kill the Lady of Pain, one needs to find the recipe, recover all the ingredients, and finally before imbibing the concoction make sure the potion actually works. Finding the recipe means seeking out a copy of the book, or at least the part that contains the recipe. One being who has dedicated himself to the transcription of the Book of Keeping is the shator Xideous, currently located in a cell in the Gatehouse Asylum. The gehreleth is incredibly arrogant and possibly insane to the point of having excess delusions of grandeur. He claims to have received a few pages from the Athar gnome Kesto Brighteyes and been funded by the titaness Zadara, as well as crediting Estavan of the Planar Trade Consortium with aiding him in the collection of information via transportation of gehreleths, bottled in liquid form, to and from his cell. While it seems Kesto and Zadara are knowingly aiding Xideous in the transcription of the Book of Keeping, Estevan's exact knowledge is less clear. Though the Athar have been banished from Sigil, they are still a planes spanning faction and should not be taken lightly. Similarly, those seeking to question a titaness belonging to the Merkhant sect or the head of the Planar Trade Consortium should either have a great deal of wealth or incredible force on their side. If one can gain an audience with either of these personages one should find a potentially invaluable source of information regarding their quest to do in the Lady of Pain.

As a titaness, Zadara is gifted with dominion over a certain aspect of reality and in her case its the ability to sense the potential of a being. She's also looking for a way to gain control over Sigil herself though (which might be why she's interested in the Book of Keeping in the first place), so one should be wary about disclosing too much of their plans to her. With all the resources of the Planar Trade Consortium at his command, Estevan should prove to be in possession either the information one is seeking or capable of acquiring at least some important information about the Book of Keeping or really any plan one might wish to enact to kill the Lady of Pain. Be warned, though, that Estevan is not what he seems. He is more than an ogre magi, and his interests lie far beyond the acquisition of personal wealth. Estevan considers himself a guardian of the planes for reasons of his own, and its quite possible that if he thought someone would harm the Lady of Pain he'd use his resources to stop them rather than aid them.

Acquiring the ingredients of the potion may also prove difficult, given that beyond the shred of archanoloth heart very few recipes claiming to be the correct one have any ingredients in common. Ingredients range from the eye of the Astral Dreadnought to a simple collection of herbs and spices. Irketa H'zazz, a bladeling assassin, believes she has managed to gather all the ingredients over the decades and now requires the last one - the piece of an archanoloth's heart. Irketa is convinced, given some divination she received about the recipe, that the certainty of success requires not just any archanoloth's heart but specifically that of the King of the Crosstrade herself.

Given the disparate and conflicting recipes out there, many of which are works of fiction or themselves traps or deadly practical jokes, it is not enough to possess a recipe - one must verify that is both the one written in the Book of Keeping and that it actually works. Tracking this information down might involve a trip to the Tower of the Archanoloths in Gehenna or even an audience with the Oinoloth in Khin Oin. Attempting to enter either location is fraught with danger, and so one might wish to ask for the aid of the Mithral Lodge and its masters of disguise. It might also involve traveling through time in order to learn the true history of the book and if even its author believed that the potion would actually work. If it does work, one wonders if the creator of the potion used it to achieve Sigil for herself...

There is another source that might be consulted, though even becoming lost in time or suffering at the hands of the Oinoloth might be preferable to the fate these beings can bestow as a sentence. The Baernoloths, those mysterious and seemingly weak members of the greater yugoloth caste, have been known to possess uncanny knowledge regarding not just the Lower Planes but of many things relating to the primordial ages of the Multiverse as well. There are even those who claim that the Demented, those insane baern who meddle in the affairs of Order and Chaos and serve as advisors to the ultroloths, are far more powerful than the experiences of many noted adventurers and Blood War veterans indicates.

Finally, once one has the potion and is reasonably convinced that it works, one must ensure that imbibing it grants success in any venture as well as get some idea of the costs that might be incurred to ensure such success.. Ideally one can find someone who possesses little guile and is possessed of a modest venture such as running a tea shop or taking a dysfunctional athletic team to the final rounds of its league. One might even give it to a slave who could not possibly achieve freedom any other way or a child wishing to turn into a dragon on his fifth birthday, that way ensuring that it is the potion and not some twist of coincidences that sees the venture through.

Negate Her Power or turn It Against Her

The Lady's power comes from her ability to cast her enemies into her Mazes, the power of her shadow to flay her enemies regardless of the protections they've placed upon themselves, and ultimately her resistance to almost every form of attack. In fact, one cannot simply seek her out in her lair, she appears on her terms rather than because of any specific set of circumstances. Even when the cult of Trolan was worshipping her, she waited for days before publicly slaughtering them with her shadow. When Darkwood attempted to use the Sigil Spell against her, she set up events so that the factol of the Fated ended up in an endlessly recurring destiny, forced to replay his folly out until the end of time.

However, there have been those who've hypothesized different strategies for taking down the Lady, perhaps the greatest of these being the Sigil Spell. Yet the means others have undertaken or are seeking to undertake should not be overlooked, for perhaps though destined to fail there might be enough truth within their plans to see someone stronger and wiser through to the end of the quest to kill the Lady of Pain.

To follow:

Turn the Mazes Against Her

When discussing the history of the Lady, one point that sticks out to any seeking to depose her is that she has not always had the ability to create her mazes. The key piece of evidence used by those who believe this is the entrapment of an ancient wizard in the Labyrinth Stone. Given that those who are truly aware of the events surrounding the Faction War know that the wizard was Rowan Darkwood, and that the Lady trapped him in the gemstone so as to imprison him inside an eternal recurrence, this one piece of evidence might simply be the Lady choosing a very specific punishment for the Duke.

Yet there may be some truth to the Lady's power over the Mazes being something that can be taken from her. After all, the Duke escaped his own maze with a specially prepared wish, and yet when he returned to Sigil it was 500 years in the past and in the confines of the Gatehouse. There is some known connection between the Gatehouse, whose central area appears as a massive helm, and the Lady's ability to spin off pieces of Sigil into Mazes floating in the Ethereal. What this connection is remains a mystery, though it is known that the Gatehouse did not always belong to the Bleak Cabal.

It is also possible that one might not need a wish to escape their Maze. The githyanki Djhek'nlarr has the ability to enter the Mazes of others and map her way around them, and finally escape through the portal the Lady is always said to leave to taunt those sentenced to that specific maze. It is believed by the Harmonium that Djhek'nlarr is a hr'a'cknir, a profession among her people dedicated to harnesses the psychic currents on the Astral. It is believe she can use this power to find those who she pushes into being mazed on the Deep Ethereal, by utilizing a supposed secret portal in Sigil itself, and then follow her own psychic trail out of any maze that she's entered. Djhek'nlarr, the Hard Heads suspect, is using all her maps to better understand how Her Serenity mazes enemies so that the githyanki criminal can steal that power and perhaps make a maze for the Lady herself.

Far removed from Sigil is another being who seeks to wrest control of the mazes. Baphomet has long known of the strange relationship between minotaurs and labyrinths, but he did not plan on fighting the Lady of Pain until the planewalker Ch'osk confirmed that in an alternate reality (possibly a prior iteration of the current multiverse) minotaurs were immune from the magic of the maze spell. This led to him wonder if the connection minotaurs had to mazes could one of their number, including possibly himself, capable of mastering the power the Lady possesses that allows her to spin off Mazes from the material inside Sigil.

While he may ask Pale Night for aid when a definite plan presents itself, Baphomet seeks answers from an even older demon prince Pale Night introduced him to. This ancient demon is known as Dwiergus, the Chrysalis Prince, and it was likely due to the tutelage of this obyrith lord that the Demon Lord of Beasts has devoted so much time to breeding and designing fiends that resemble the tanar'ri himself. Now together they seek to create a fiendish minotaur that might turn the magic of the Mazes against the Lady herself.

If anyone did manage to maze the Lady, it is unclear what the effects upon Sigil would be. Many graybeards suspect that even if the Lady were trapped Sigil might still be under her control, given that every maze still has a mystic connection to the Gatehouse at least. This connection might even exist for this exact eventuality. However, with the Lady gone and her control over the mazes lost, it is entirely possible that every prisoner she entrapped over the eons would be loosed upon the Cage simultaneously.

Drain Sigil of its Magic

Centuries ago, inspired by the wizard trapped in the Labyrinth stone, a group of magi came together and founded a faction based on the belief that arcana magic was the true key to the Multiverse. Known as the Incantifiers, these men and women were so confident in their faith that they transformed themselves into beings that fed on magic to survive.

There was much to credit their philosophy, including their own rise to power in Sigil. From their Tower Sorcerous they gained control over much of the Cage, until the day came when, like many factions who seem poised to take over the City of Doors, they disappeared from the streets of Sigil. Most believe that they are even now wandering a maze that they cannot escape despite their considerable arcane power.

Yet one of their number, transformed after their now centuries distant defeat, has come to the Cage and seeks to drain the city itself of its magic. This tiefling, known as Alluvius Ruskin, is one of the last remaining Incantifiers. It might be that her faith in magic is strong enough for her to eat from the city's own arcana, though if she attempts this and has any knowledge of Harbinger House she'll utilize the shielding properties of the Focrux.

Once she begins her plan, one should expect the portals of Sigil to fail, either not working at all or depositing travelers in unintended locations. The dabus will also be affected, and its possible that the very magic Alluvius (or another Incantifier) steals is that which allows them live. As such, the dabus of the Cage might sicken and die even as the Lady is unable to find the one responsible. Finally, if Sigil is drained of all its magic, there might be nothing to keep the gods out but also nothing to fight over.

Shift the Spire (done above)

Turn Her into a God

If gods aren't allowed in Sigil, and the Lady became a god, then she'd have to exile herself. This is why, many claim, she forbids anyone from worshipping her. Yet the Lady's reach only extends to the boundaries of the Cage, and it is possible someone could gather followers for Her Serenity everywhere else in the Multiverse. If Trolan survived the madness that briefly seized Harbinger House, its possible that as a deity of peace and love he might built his own faith around his love for the Lady of Pain. Others might begin cults elsewhere, and it stands to reason that at some point in time someone must have attempted to make the Lady into a god in order to exploit this apparent axiom regarding the nature of Sigil.

However, having worshipers doesn't necessarily make one a god, and lacking them doesn't always prevent one's apotheosis. The titan Zadara had worshipers on the Prime, but was unable to rise to godhood – which is when a true god sought to punish her she fled to the safety of Sigil. On the other hand the wizard Raistlin was a god in a now erased timeline, though this apparently would not have ended well for him.

If one could create worlds upon worlds of worshipers for the Lady, and somehow bring them into the extradimensional confines of Harbinger House, one may forced her into an unasked for apotheosis. Whether this means she must abandon control of Sigil is unknown.

Drive Her Mad

During the chaotic time that led to the possible ascension of certain Godsmen, the Lady was rather discomfited as the Focrux kept her from determining the location of those who were affecting the reality of her city. This led to the dabus to engage in various erratic behaviors, which aided adventurers in putting a stop to the nefarious plans of one particular succubus. If the contests of potential deities, mere mortals with a spark of the divine, could affect the Lady what would happen if a true god were able to work mischief from within the shelter of the Focrux's aura.

Bringing the Automatic Scribe and its resident Abyssal Power to Harbinger House might be one's best means of defeating the Lady, as the nightmarish miracles it would be free to perform would result in the Lady being driven insane.

Another plan, being worked on by a sextuplet of dream larva born from a tryst by an unknown oneiric power, is to confront the Lady with her worst fears. If they can find a way into Sigil, likely through the House, they believe that by attacking her simultaneously they will all transform into her worst fear and thus gain the ability to eliminate her once she goes mad from the terror. One of them, however, doubts the efficacy of this strategy and does not plan on going along with the rest should they find a portal to take them into the House. It is his belief that the Lady fears nothing, and that to confront would mean that a dream larva would cease to exist.

Within the forbidden Pages of Pain is a tale about Theseus, of how the Thrassian delivered an amphora to the Lady that contained memories gifted to her by Poseidon. These memories claimed that the Lady was the daughter of the Sea God, though its possible such memories were false and meant to weaken the Lady's mental resolve. Regardless if the story in the Pages is true what is known is that Her Serenity continues to rule the City of Doors and Poseidon remains barred from its portals and streets.

Break Darkwood out of His Time Loop

If there is no Rowan, there is no Labyrinth Stone and possibly there are likely no Incantifiers, possibly no Faction War, and certainly no wizard who is Rowan thrown back in time to create the Sigil Spell. The very history of Sigil is called into question, and thus the history of all placed that have been touched by its portals from the time of the Labyrinth Stone to conclusion of the Faction War.

It is possible that placing Sigil in a temporal paradox would turn the myriad guardians of Time against the Lady, whose own actions have resulted in a possible snarl in the timestream - providing a valuable distraction if you are enacting another plan to take down the Lady or interfere with time for some other reason.This is assuming that changes to the past of the Multiverse don't result in the creation of divergent timestreams, though even then being able to manipulate events in this divergent Great Wheel might allow one to control the planes in that alternate timeline. It might be that several chronomancers have done just that, and are now sitting on the metaphorical Throne of Blades in these parallel wheels.

Utilize the Magic of the Mirrors

In ancient days, prior to the Rilmani settling around the base of the Spire, the Kamerel claimed the centermost area of the Outlands for themselves. Like the Rilmani they were creatures of neutrality, yet where the former sought to bring Balance to the Cosmos the Kamerel were concerned with only their own existences rather than any alignment or external belief. So great was their xenophobia that they isolated themselves from the rest of the Multiverse, content to exist on the Outlands away from all other races. Yet somehow, despite being so close to the Spire, they managed to learn the secrets of mirror magic. Thought it fails in the way all magic fails at the Spire's base, its efficacy outstrips the spells others might use in the Spire's proximity. Using mirror magic, the Kamerel were able to scry on others, transport themselves across their empire on the Outlands, and even create space within the reflections of their mirrors.

Yet when one of their number used the mirrors to create the Mirrored Library, which records anything written in the Multiverse intended to be seen by another's eyes, so long as it exceeds a certain number of words, the other Kamerel slew her for bringing such impurity into their homeland. Eventually, with the emergence of the Rilmani, the race of isolationists was forced to flee into the mirror worlds they'd created. But then the Kamerel returned, when a plague of stifling Order known as the Iron Shadow turned the Rilmani to salt. And then they were pushed back into the mirrors to which they had been driven.

Now there are some among the Kamerel that feel that they should reconquer the Outlands, and drive out all non-Kamerel from its infinite circumference. To do so, they realize, they need to control Sigil which in turn will hopefully give them control over the Spire and the Outlands. Having entered the Mirror Library through their other mirror worlds, they've poured over countless texts and use their ability to travel through mirrors to steal countless more from unsuspecting scholars, historians, and wizards. Having raised mirror magic to new heights, they now believe that once they drive off the Rilmani they can put their plan to control Sigil into action.

If given the chance, the Kamerel will place hundreds of thousands of mirrors around the Spire, all of them reflecting the torus of Sigil. Within their mirror worlds, the kamerel believe, they will have the power to compel the reflections of the Lady of Pain to give up her secrets and give them the means to her defeat. They will then use this knowledge to empower a mirror duplicate of her, if not a legion of them, all rising out of the mirrors and floating up toward the infinitely distant Sigil like dandelion seeds in the warm summer winds.

Even if their plan fails to work, one should consider the power of mirror duplicates against the Lady. While entering the Plane of Mirrors always has its share of risks, one might seek out the kamerel as well as the nerra, and possibly other races that might have knowledge of how to use the mirrors to reflect and possibly entrap Her Serenity.

Use a Piece of Her Body against Her

Among those privy to the secret history of Sigil as well as the power of Harbinger House, many wonder how the Focrux is able to block the sense of the Lady. There is also the question of how the helm of Jeremo the Natterer allows him to speak in the way of the dabus. Many wonder if these artifacts are somehow connected to the Lady, or perhaps even contain a part of her body that was now broken off in some time lost conflict. While the Helm of the Dabus may have no direct connection to the Lady, one does notice that when active the Forcux and the Planarity began to have bladelike protrusions pulsing along their surfaces.

Based on this theory, one might seek out the Knife in the River in the Ditch, a part of the blade that supposedly was torn from her scalp. If the Knife exists and is indeed a piece of Her Serenity's body, its conceivable it might be used by a hedge witch to curse the Lady or by a conjurer seeking to bind her.

There is also a group of planar traders who say that the bloodline of the Lady could be used to control her, as because of this have set their sights on conquering the Zoronor, the City of Shadows. These Merkhants are convinced that the Lady was originally born of bladeling stock, based on some ancient tomb one of the myriad expeditions they fund that one group of hired adventurers managed to ransack. With the incredible wealth at their disposal, they are convinced they'll be able to hire an army large enough to conquer the bladelings. After this, they'll have the hundreds of alchemists in their employ experiment on the bladelings until some means of controlling the Lady of Pain is found. They way they see it, once they have Zoronor under their control they'll have generations of bladelings on which to experiment until they finally find what they're seeking.

Use the Last Word Against the Lady

When Orcus was slain by the drow goddess Kiaransalee, his corpse was left to float in the void of the Astral. Yet, whether by accident or design, the Prince of Undead found himself transformed into the undead spectre of a god that went by the name of Tenebrous. In this form, Orcus managed to find among the ruins of Pelion, the magic known as the True Words. The word that Orcus learned, the last Word, was said by its guardians to be “the most horrible of them all.” Though it began to consume his form, the Last Word also gave Tenebrous the power to slay numerous gods and planar lords including the modron lord Primus, the illithid god Maanzecorian, and the deity Camxtli whose power over fate did not save him from his death.

While Orcus has resurrected himself, a group of greater powers found a way to oppose or nullify the power of the Last Word. As such, its unclear if it could be used against the Lady of Pain – this company of greater deities might have changed reality so that the Word doesn't work anymore. What's more, no mortal could learn the Last Word, or any of the True Words, without being consumed. So to even hold the Last Word in one's mind one must be immortal and possess considerable power. Yet there are many beings that might be able to learn a True Word and survive, and if a god did possess the Last Word it could enter Howler's Crag and speak the Word with the Lady as its intended recipient. In fact, if Tenebrous had not been preoccupied with stabilizing his own form it's possible he might have used the Last Word in just such a manner. Those adventurers who sought to prevent his resurrection recall a vision in the Astral in which Orcus was surrounded by dead gods and the Lady of Pain was held broken and bleeding in his claws.

Though the Last Word is likely unknown to any save Orcus and those deities who negated its power, there are those who seek the means to recover it. Some chronomancers have attempted to return to the past of Pelion, before the gods who created the True Words either died or simply left the third layer of Aborea. Others have attempted to reach the site of Tenebrous's discovery before he finds the Last Word. As yet, no one from either of these groups has returned.

A little known secret of the pact binders is that though Orcus was revived, the entity that was Tenebrous also survived and continues to exist in the place of the vestiges. It's thought that some part of Orcus's divinity, which he may or not still possess, was shorn from and it is that divine energy that resulted in the separate existence of Tenebrous. As yet, attempting to learn the Last Word from this shadowy being have proven fruitless though many immortal pact binders continue to try.

Yet there may be one more place that one might learn of the Last Word. On the Paraelemental Plane of Ice, there rests the Mountain of Ultimate Winter. Said to be the coldest place in the Multiverse, its known that the cold freezes even speech in its icy heights. There is a company of gelugons hiding from the immoth and paralementals of ice, seeking to find an echo of the Last Word that might have reveberated from across the Outer Planes, into the Inner Planes, and finally ended up within the icy confines of the Mountain.

Although the Last Word might be lost, there might be other True Words in the ruins of Pelion that could conceivably defeat the Lady of Pain. Among the kind but insane souls seeking to free the Lady from the Cage is the bralani eladrin Kesawa Iren. Ever since Orcus found the Last Word in the white wastes of Pelion (see Dead Gods), the celestial has been seeking a Word of Freedom whereby he might release the Lady from her life of servitude. He is certain that separating her from her Cage will end her life, but he believes that this would be a mercy killing as her soul would finally be able to move on to what he claims is a higher reality beyond the circumference of the multiverse. Kesawa plans not only to the learn the True Word of Freedom, but to speak it at the conclusion of the Sigil Spell which he plans to recreate. Though he has neither the True Word or the Sigil Spell, the bralani is courageous and insane enough to believe that Virtue itself will see him through...