Sigil PC Residences?

Oh, the places we’ve called kip over the years!

Most of our games start off in the Cage, and the group almost always has a base there - partly for the portal convenience but also because “without a kip in the Cage, you’re not a real planewalker” (at least that’s what the estate agents keep saying!)

Our lodgings have been very varied, and often set the tone of the campaign. We also love developing the area around each kip, as it not only shows new players the ‘local colour’ but helps to create the feeling that the PCs exist in a vibrant and living setting (God is in the little details here, like how long it takes the cleric to walk to the nearest appropriate temple or how the local urchins follow the party sorcerer about begging to be shown some magic. PC actions are bound to impact on the area where they live, for both good and ill).

Even if they only spend time a short while in their lodgings between adventures, the party will likely have a local tavern, laundry, and fast food joint, etc. A canny DM can use lots of the details as adventure hooks - such as “nobody causes trouble in my bar!” - and a night on the town makes a good alternative to endless adventuring (especially if 1 or more players suddenly can’t make it that session), and some ‘harmless’ fun and comedy, since PCs usually outclass the locals.

The local area is also a great forum for letting characters show off their beliefs and attitudes in a non-adventuring situation: Do they promote their Faction or religion? Do they hold themselves aloof or mix with the locals? Are they thought of as potential defenders and champions, or as trouble-makers? And of course what does the local Hardhead patrol think of them?

Digressed a bit there, sorry.

Personally I think that a body’s kip is pretty important to a campaign.

1) Do characters in your campaigns have their own kips in Sigil?
2) How nice are those houses and where are they located?

In our various campaigns, we’ve had the following lodgings:

In the attic of a mechanised saw mill in Lower Ward – complete with a giant buzz-saw blade in the middle of it (the DM sulked for hours when we built a box around it). Also it was VERY NOISY!

Above a tinker’s shop in Clerk’s Ward.

In a cursed Daern’s Instant Fortress that automatically pledges your soul to Mephistopheles if you spend the entire night in it.

In a one-room pit filled with thousands of discarded articles of clothing

In a cuckoo clock hung up in someone else’s kip (a faerie PC).

In a ‘Ye Olde Worde’ style place in Lady’s Ward, mothered by an immense rotund old woman (she keeps saying “oh, we can settle up later” and I suspect we’re going to get billed for about a million gp come the end of the month!)

Above the Paper Dragon in Clerk’s Ward, protected magical spells, an Aoskan Hound, and the good will of several powerful wizards... but if they’re not back home when the shop shuts up, they’re locked out for the night!

Other locations we’ve toyed with but not actually used include:

Hiring an Arcadian pony carriage and living in it, trotting unceasingly around Lady’s Ward.

A beautiful palace in Lady’s Ward (but to get inside you have to go via portal to the Abyss, sprinting past numerous monsters to a second portal that leads inside)

Living in an entirely illusionary apartment (actually it’s a bare, damp, squat)

3) If not, where do they live? Is it reasonable for someone to live in taverns?

Well, the question is wouldn’t you rather live in an inn? Although some taverns might have a room or a common area you can sleep in, they’re made for drinking not sleeping in (would you really like to live above a bar 24/7?) More professional inns also provide other services such as restaurants, room service, laundry, armour and weapons cleaning, guards, and maybe a vault for all that treasure.

4) How much do they spend on residence or do you just handwave rent, since domestic costs are nothing to the riches that an adventurer carries around in his pockets?

Handwaving? Riches? Clearly you’ve never played with our DM!!! Numerous times we’ve gone adventuring strictly to pay the rent, and numerous times we’ve ended an adventure with just enough jink to pay for another week.

Prices have varied hugely.

5) Speaking of portals, are there any in that house?

Most sensible planars examine their lodgings minutely for any useful or potentially dangerous portals within it, so it’s fair to assume that so has the landlord, who will charge appropriately – more rent for a portal that allows a warm Elysium breeze into the room, less for one with a portal to the Orcus’ layer of the Abyss (and average for situations like “I know it’s dangerous on the other side, but not what opens it and nobody’s been eaten so far.”)

Most landlords would insist on a hike in rent if they discovered PCs using it... although if the house has a lot of unknown portals in it, the PCs could pay the rent by identifying and scouting them, say... 1 or 2 per month?

6) Do they all live together? Is it reasonable for all these characters to be roommates on top of everything else? Shouldn't they all have their own houses, since they presumably didn't always know each other? Isn't having the party split up for the night annoying and uselessly complicated?

Normally everyone calls kip together, for convenience – and for mutual protection! That said, the PCs often get sick of the sight of each other and several of them have a home away from home (inn, friend, etc) they sleep at now and again. Things tend to break up when we reach higher level too, as people seek their own place.

Actually, in our version of PS, a company was set up by a group of PCs years ago, which specialises in putting adventurers together in compatible groups, and finding them lodgings. A good reason for more eclectic groups to be bunking together.

Actually Lady’s Ward is an excellent location for respectable adventurers. Yes the prices are extortionate but there’s usually a pay off in contacts and reputation, and adventurers are notorious over-spenders especially when just back from a successful job. And as I said above, not having enough jink to pay the landlord is an easy way to send the PCs off on a job – and jobs can get awful interesting when you need to finance a life in Lady’s Ward. The easiest way to get set up in LW would probably be to attract a patron, who provides lodgings in exchange for the added prestige of your reputation.

In my mind, the other pros and cons of living in Lady’s Ward pretty much cancel each other out.

Do pardon the prodigious verbosity of my badinage!

WOW :shock: I think that really depends on who your DM is! Since a lot of campaigns seem to cut off at lvl 20 to avoid the Epic rules this seems a little extreme, especially given that with a bit of hard work your average clerk can realistically aspire to owning a modest apartment in clerks ward before they die. I'd generally say that you could - if you've been saving - afford a reasonable place by about lvl 14, possibly earlier if there's a quest tie-in.

Note: That is to own not to rent. Most clerks and workers in Sigil probably either rent their lodgings (as I recall most people do in modern cities). Also keep in mind there is a BIG differance between a clerk coming to someone to take out a loan to buy a place and an adventurer. True PCs have more liquid assets but npc workers have steady dependable income. Also families probably keep a building.

When it comes down to it what I meant was 14 to outright own the property, the land itself. A big differance from owning an appartment.

Following on, an interesting question just occured to me:

From the legal/Guvnor prospective, I wonder what makes your house your house? After all, your address can shift and change out of the street, or even out the district.

Just thinking aloud