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Sigil guard (post faction war)

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Sat, 2011-11-12 11:06
#1
Avin
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Sigil guard (post faction war)

I've DM some Planescape games on 3.5, 4E and Pathfinder, all of them post Faction War.

In my campaigns things are settling down after war and Dabus are slowly walking away from their admin job, after factions are gone.

Reading 4E's Manual of the Planes and DMGII gave me impression that Sons of Mercy job as "city guards" isn't good enough.

For my next session I'm gonna start showing players that a new police force is raising on Sigil. Instead of Harmonium's red, they wear blue and are far more tolerant than hardheads. Sons of Mercy will stick with Prison, while "blues" will patrol streets... well, most of them.

I think maybe Mutual Trade Association could be behind this, creating a mercenary force in order to make their business safe.

What do you guys think? Is it a reasonable explanation?

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Sat, 2011-11-12 13:07
#2
Kobold Avenger
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Re: Sigil guard (post faction war)

My idea for the city guard post faction war, was that eventually you'd just have a bunch of militias covering different parts of the city. In some places it's the Sons of Mercy, in other places it's the Sodkillers or Harmonium remnants, in others it may be mercenary groups or neighbourhood gangs.

Sun, 2011-11-13 11:20
#3
Jenx
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Re: Sigil guard (post faction war)

Me, I imagine Sigil's city guard sort of like the watchmen in Ankh-Morpork. Ya know, this sort of ragtag group of all kinds of weird creatures walking around the streets and keeping things safe. Now that the city has something resembling a governing body in the face of the council this means they can start recruiting people for a proper police force.

This, in turn, will also eventually lead to some tension between the "official" sigil police, the Sons of Mercy, the Sodkillers and maybe even the Harmonium, since they'd be stepping on the toes of all three of these organizations, in one way or another.

I do like the bit about them wearing blue to differentiate themselves from the Harmonium.

....Plus, this way you get to have Samuel Vimes in Planescape, and don't friggin tell me that's not all kinds of cool!

Sun, 2011-11-13 11:52
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Avin
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Re: Sigil guard (post faction war)

I love Discworld.

Vimes in charge of some police force in Sigil is something to think about.

Blues will probably be using Harmonium's old headquarters so, sure, that could generate some tension on the exiled members of that faction.

Mon, 2012-01-09 10:42
#5
Munin
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Re: Sigil guard (post faction war)

I'm working on a Sigil City Watch campaign, have been for quite a long time actually. Its going to be run as a procedural show, with NCIS, CIS and Hillstreet Blues as the big inspirations.

The set up is basically that the Faction War and the Tempest of Portals caused something of a financial crisis on the outer planes. The basis for this is that the busiest city of the outer planes was unreachable for while, shortly before that you didn't really want to come and afterwards, all the portals got mixed up.
So trade has slowed to a halt, causing poverty to rise and forcing adventures to look for more stable work... that's were the Sigil City Watch comes into the picture.

I'm a big fan of Discworld too and the Ankh Morpork watch is definitely a big inspiration. I envision that the Sigil watch is going through the same kinds of changes as their Ankh Morpork counterparts, changing from a normal medieval guard, where their really a sort of militia, to something approaching a modern police force.

But, as big an inspiration as the Discworld is, I am afraid of going overboard and ruining the feel of Planescape setting in general and the mood of Sigil in particular. So I'm making the watch corrupt, some watchmen take bribes, others are Sodkillers trying to take over control of the Watch, Sons of Mercy trying the same but in a politer way, Anarchists trying to destroy the Watch and probably someone on the Advisory Council is trying to disband the Watch for their own nefarious purposes. Also, I dont want to include magic too much in the forensic work, scrying would be a pain.

So in my campaign the Sigil City Watch is the kind of place you look for work if you cant get anything else. It's underfunded, not very effective and several Factions and political power players have their own designs on it. It really needs a band of adventures to turn things around.

I might want to run the Something Wild adventure as the "second season", so I've got the Minders Guild running the prison.

*Edited for brainfarts*

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