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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

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Submitted by Gerzel on Sat, 2005-04-23 22:05
in

Well like the title says I wanna know what the largest body of water is. Also I'm curios as to:
Sources of water in canon?
What rivers are in Sigil and where they go?

I'm thinking of doing a bit of writing on an aquatic section of Sigil or two. Including flora and fauna and other denzins. Have an idea to outline an adventure which starts when an area of the hive falls into a sinkhole and is left flooded looking like a swamp.

Also thinking of working on an idea of an underground Sigilian sea with portals large enough to carry ships through. Pirates yarr!

Sun, 2005-04-24 06:25
#2
Ohtar Turinson
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

I think the only thing really defined for Sigil is the Ditch, at the edge of the hive- and you couldn't swim in that normally, anymore than you could swim in the Ankh River (from Terry Prachett's Diskworld books in the event you haven't read 'em)

Sun, 2005-04-24 08:26
(Reply to #2) #3
Clueless
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

There's no real weather - so no real rain, at least none in the amounts needed to make a river. It's like living in a sealed jar. So there's no naturally occuring rivers. And no underground rivers (supplied by rain etc) to produce naturally occuring springs. I could see an underground open portal to someplace wet producing the environment you're looking for though.

Presumably there's some water flows in Undersigil - maybe a tributary of the Styx that enteres through aportal - but all the water (like all the air, soil, wood, stone, food, beer...) in Sigil is an import, be it so much as a fountian that's a continually open portal to the plane of Water.

Sun, 2005-04-24 08:37
(Reply to #3) #4
Nemui
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

"Clueless" wrote:
There's no real weather -

Hmm... Sigil isn't big enough to create its own weather pattern? I know the Lady is supposed to manipulate the free-floating portals to Elemental Air to provide an atmosphere, but I would imagine that this aritificial atmosphere functions on its own from there on. No rivers, sure, but why not rain? I can't recall if official sources had mentioned rain, but the fog is there, of course...

Sun, 2005-04-24 09:23
(Reply to #4) #5
Clueless
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

Ok - let me rephrase this a little. No self sustaining weather patterns. The Lady herself could lock down Sigil and make it dry as a bone being the idea.

Sigil is the size of a city. The expanse of land to sustain a real weather pattern is huge. Like - half a continent size huge. The expanse of land needed for rain to fall on to produce a river in the low laying part of the area is much larger than a city. In order to get that much concentration of water in the air as rain in Sigil to support a flowing river through the city... I think people would drown. There just isn't *enough* falling from the sky to produce bodies of water.

That also means water as it comes in through portals or falls from the sky would be valuable enough not to casually let it disappear. Aka: I suspect the residents of Sigil have cisterns and other water collection techniques in addition to depending on the portals. So moisture in the air is constantly being soaked up by the entities of Sigil (like the oxygen is) and therefore the system needs to be topped off in the long run by the Lady.

So that, and with space at a premium there wouldn't be any real bodies of water - unless underground and/or sustained by portals.

Sun, 2005-04-24 12:11
(Reply to #5) #6
Kaelyn
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Rain, miserable rain.

I think it rains quite a bit in Sigil, probably at least as often as it doesn't. There's never been any indication in any of the books that there's any kind of water shortage in Sigil, though obviously there would have been a severe one during the Faction War, when all the portals were closed.

All the rain does come through portals in the clouds - Sigil doesn't have any sort of "natural" weather - but that doesn't mean rain is infrequent. All of Sigil's daylight comes through portals in the sky, yet Sigil has daylight every day. Percipitation in Sigil typically manifests as a miserable drizzle, but it rains harder on occasion.

The Mimir has a little bit on Sigil's weather in its Outlands Calendar page.

"the Mimir" wrote:
Rilmani myths claim the Outlands used to have their own weather, like all the other planes. It wasn't much to speak of: A kind of dreary, rainy, miserable sort of climate. This was many thousands of years ago, back in the times before Aoskar was banished from the of Doors. The chant goes on to say that the Outland's weather slowly disappeared, almost like it was being stolen, leaving the Plane-at-the-Centre with a weather-void. Now even a Clueless prime could have a stab at what happened to it...

It was about this time that the planar winds started to blow harder, bringing the weather of the other Outer planes with them. Dark whispers said that the Lady had trapped the Outlands weather in the Cage and the planes themselves were trying to fill the gap she'd left. Why? Who can say, cutter. To this day, though, the prevailing winds of the Outlands blow in from the rim towards the Spire, and presumably up it, too.

Well, it seems the Lady's Cage is full of holes (but then rain never needed big holes to get through). Once per cycle Sigil's miserable weather escapes and scurries across the Outlands like a mouse with a cat on its tail. During this time, the planar winds are repelled and whatever month is happening is sort of put on hold. Thing is, nobody can tell for sure when the Veiled Month (as it's come to be known) will come; it seems to change year on year.

One thing's for sure, though. Every few hundred years the Veiled Month happens bang in the middle of Revolvis, and that's when the Modron March comes. Why? Who can say, cutter.

Sigil's largest body of water is the Ditch, which divides the Hive Ward from the Lower Ward. Most of the time, the Ditch is more filled with mud, sewage, industrial runoff, and corpses than water, but the Oceanus irregularly flows into it, so that occasionally it's a true river.

Water from the Ditch drains into Sigil Below and probably eventually flows into the River Styx, making that dark river of the lower planes even more polluted than it already is. I like the idea that the Ditch connects the Oceanus with the Styx, transforming the holy water of the Upper Planes into filth, and that planewalkers can - if only rarely - use portals to travel through Sigil from one planar river to the other. If this is true, the Ditch is very likely the only direct connection between the two rivers, further increasing the significance of the City of Doors.

There are other bodies of water in Sigil, mostly filled from ooze portals in the Hive Ward, though there are other portals from the Plane of Water and even the River Styx that cagers use on occasion, filling private pools and strange rivers in Sigil Below.

There is a region in Sigil Below called the Weeping Catacombs fed by water seeping from the Ditch. There is (or was) another region in Sigil Below fed by a decanter of endless water.

There's also the Vertical Sea, from James Alan Gardner's Fire and Dust. It's a fish farm in the Hive, twenty stories high, built out of glass vats connected by ramps and trestles and catwalks, arranged in a seemingly random pattern so that each vat perfectly counterbalances the others.

Sun, 2005-04-24 13:19
(Reply to #6) #7
Kaelyn
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

Ah, here's the quote from Sigil and Beyond:

"Rain and smog - that pretty much says everything about Sigil's weather. The city's sky is mostly a greasy-looking haze from the smoke and fumes that belch from a thousand chimneys. When it rains - which it does a lot - the rainwater's got a brownish tinge from all the crud that's scrubbed from the sky. When it's not raining, there's an equally good chance that a thick, foglike smog has settled over the city. Visibility can be as bad as only 5 feet in the worst of these, but most times a cutter can see about 10 yards through the haze.

"When it isn't drizzling brown water or swaddled in fog, Sigil can be a pretty pleasant place. The temperature tends to be cool (chilly when it's raining), and light breezes blow away the stagnant odor that normally hangs in the air. Still, no cutter ever comes to Sigil for the climate."

Drinking the rain water sounds like a bad idea, though. Better to rely on portals to the Plane of Water, the Upper Planes, or the Prime.

Sun, 2005-04-24 13:22
(Reply to #7) #8
LegatoX
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

A Xaositech told me that he was largest body of water in Sigil. I didn't really get it at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

Mon, 2005-04-25 01:04
(Reply to #8) #9
Fell
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

That's funny.

I'd heard there was a barmy Signer wandering around the Clerk's Ward last month claiming that he knows where Sigil's largest body of water lies. The fact that he was completely soaked at the time has absolutely nothing to do with the claim at hand...

Mon, 2005-04-25 10:13
(Reply to #9) #10
Krypter
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

Cities can generate micro-climates and have their own peculiar weather. Enough to create a sea? Probably not, but with all kinds of portals bringing in not just water but ice, fire, smoke, clouds and moisture from other planes, it would probably be enough for a lake or small river. There might even be several biomes present in small patches here and there, although Sigil remains La Grande Metropole and doesn't really have parks as we know them.

I think Sigil would benefit from an underground river, used by silent dabus sewerkeepers, filled with troglodytes, dark creepers, shadow creatures and all the things that don't like the light. They like to travel through portals too. Maybe Sigil Below is a huge highway for things that go bump in the night as much as Sigil Above is the multiversal crossroads for humanoid races.

Mon, 2005-04-25 19:41
(Reply to #10) #11
Fell
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

"Krypter" wrote:
I think Sigil would benefit from an underground river, used by silent dabus sewerkeepers, filled with troglodytes, dark creepers, shadow creatures and all the things that don't like the light.
I like the idea that certain types of sentient fungus might find the damp conditions on the shores of this river under the city to their liking also. In fact, there could likely be an entire community living there...

Tue, 2005-04-26 10:36
(Reply to #11) #12
Kaelyn
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

"Fell" wrote:
I like the idea that certain types of sentient fungus might find the damp conditions on the shores of this river under the city to their liking also. In fact, there could likely be an entire community living there...

They could be called "gray caps." Have you read City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer?

Tue, 2005-04-26 12:18
(Reply to #12) #13
jordarad
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

The outer planes have all the massive bodies of water they need.

Infinite. Endless possibilities.

Look into these terms.

Just becuase it isn't printed, doesn't mean it's not out there...

-JordarAd

Tue, 2005-04-26 13:21
(Reply to #13) #14
Clueless
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

Under New York is larger than New York itself... it's really kinda frightening when you realize how much *down* some of our largest cities are...

Tue, 2005-04-26 23:31
(Reply to #14) #15
Fell
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

"Kaelyn" wrote:
"Fell" wrote:
I like the idea that certain types of sentient fungus might find the damp conditions on the shores of this river under the city to their liking also. In fact, there could likely be an entire community living there...

They could be called "gray caps." Have you read City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer?


Actually no, I haven't.

Details?

Tue, 2005-04-26 23:59
(Reply to #15) #16
Kaelyn
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

"Fell" wrote:
Details?

http://www.ambergris.org/

Thu, 2005-04-28 17:07
(Reply to #16) #17
ripvanwormer
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you'll never change

See also this thread on the Rattler forums.

Sat, 2005-04-30 17:28
(Reply to #17) #18
Nemui
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

VanderMeer is nice. His name also sounds Planescapeish, doesn't it?

[troll]

Uh, is ripvanwormer also performed by Kaelyn, or is it just the other way around?

[/troll]

Sat, 2005-04-30 17:40
(Reply to #18) #19
ripvanwormer
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

"Nemui" wrote:
Uh, is ripvanwormer also performed by Kaelyn, or is it just the other way around?

It's better not to think too much about such things. But maybe if we spend some time apart I can actually use the character of Kaelyn for something, as I originally intended to.

Sat, 2005-07-23 20:01
(Reply to #19) #20
blackthornes
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

In my opinion, bodies of water aren't that fun, espeacially for low-level characters, because you always have to cross them or go around, but for planewalkers, an ocean campaign ain't to bad. You could look around the bottom with a necklace of adaptation, and discover all sorts of things, but water has a lot of dangers besides drowning.

Sun, 2005-07-24 18:11
(Reply to #20) #21
Smeazel
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

'blackthornes' wrote:
In my opinion, bodies of water aren't that fun, espeacially for low-level characters, because you always have to cross them or go around...

Oh, like almost anything else, bodies of water can be lots of fun, depending on how they're treated. In my most recent D&D campaign, I think possibly my favorite part was a long ocean voyage the PCs made. (I think they were around 7th level at the time, IIRC.) This took up many sessions, during which the PCs were confined to the ship, but there was a lot going on on that ship...among other things, one of the PCs was having vivid (supernaturally-induced) nightmares (one of which involved the ship sinking); there was an enemy of the PCs also on board the ship whom they were keeping an eye on; and, maybe most importantly, someone was trying to sabotage the ship and keep it from getting to its destination. The whole thing culminated in a great scene with most of the PCs in the hold of the ship fighting a huge elemental. The elemental picked up the strongest fighter in the party and started smashing him against the ship's hull, while a halfling PC snuck up to a secret room he had found earlier and was surprised to find a cleric who had apparently disappeared from the ship earlier and who they assumed had been killed or kidnapped by the person trying to sink the ship because she knew to much, but who, it turned out, was the one trying to sink the ship, because she had had a premonition that the PCs' arrival at her homeland would lead to the downfall of her god...

Eh, I could go on and describe what happened next, but I don't want to turn this into just telling favorite campaign stories. Suffice to say that those months (both real- and game-time) the PCs spent on that ship were, in my opinion, one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of the campaign. There's nothing about a sea voyage that makes it inherently boring.

Mon, 2005-07-25 04:27
(Reply to #21) #22
Almighty Watashi
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Q: What is the largest body of water in Sigil?

I currently run a river expedition throughout the planes so questions like this really help Smiling

As far as I know, sigil has a ditch that has lots of (let's call it) water in it. The ditch is sometimes big enough for small boats to travel through it. Some people say it is connected to the styx but that was never proven. Well, there are witnesses who claim to have seen a marraenoloth traveling the ditch but you can't believe everything you hear, there are also people who claim that they've seen the gatehouse wings flapping Laughing out loud

Also, if our lady blesses the hive ward with days of constant rain and sleet, the broken and badly made streets with clogged canals tend to result in water pools as big as small ponds.

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