Sigil shape

(By the way, the proper name for Sigil's shape is "torus.")

The city would indeed fold over itself if it were a flat rectangle folded into shape; however, if I recall correctly maps from Planescape supplements indicate it might be better thought of as a series of wedges on each side, folded into concavities and attached at each end. The Lady's Ward isn't just an exclusive sector of Sigil -- it's literally smaller, being on the inner edge of the ring!

I'm fairly sure the Cage does not have any views of the outside. Maybe if you dug into the "bedrock" of the City you'd eventually break through; this Babel-esque undertaking is probably not likely to result in any profit for the erstwhile investigators, though. ;^)

It's not a full torus; it's a torus with the interior half cut out, like a tire. A hemitorus, perhaps. That is, the latitudinal axis of the torus only completes 180 degrees or so, not the full 360 degrees. It has two edges, walled off with buildings so you can't get to them casually, but there's no need to tunnel through the ground to get outside. There's a story by H.P. Lovecraft called "The Music of Erich Zann" that dramatized a similar situation, an otherworldly city accessible only through a certain gate (a bridge); you couldn't tell that beyond the buildings was swirling, maddening nothingness unless you were in a certain room in a building high enough to see over the edge. Gary Gygax did a similar thing with his extraplanar metropolis "Weird Way," where it wasn't clear just how otherworldly the place was until the heroes climbed to the top of a building and saw that only mist and fog lay at the other side.

I see Sigil's latitudinal curve as 180 degrees, but others have proposed other angles. I think Shemmy sees Sigil as a 5 mile wide band cut out of the center of a 20 mile diameter sphere, which would make it not toroidal at all, but would mean that no matter where along the curve you're standing, part of the city on the opposite side of the ring is directly overhead.

I'd also like to vote for the "fat ring." Sigil has 100 square miles of interior surface area, unless the curves or the Lady of Pain's fiat distort that.

Yes, that's how I see it as well. The curve of the 'U' shape is five miles, while the distance between the top two points is substantially less.

Many thanks. I have had a serious misimpression of the setting (on a rather basic element, at that) corrected as a result of this thread.

Hey, I have a scan of that page that I use for quick reference when GMing. It's not the best scan, but it works. PM me if you want it, or if everyone thinks its kosher I can post it

An example of what Sigil looks like from its streets. You can see the opposite edge curving up like a great wall in the distance, and the "sky," which is full of clouds and haze and portals to the planes of smoke and radiance obscuring the void.

The fact that Sigil has a pretty normal looking sky may seem to contradict what I said about nothingness, but the view "down" over the edge is very different.

http://www.nnm.ru/imagez/gallery/doci/new/new_and_old_games-1146994760_i_2500.jpg

I was trying to find a screenshot of one of Planescape: Torment's other sigilscapes, but couldn't.

-420

There we go, for all its faults Planar Handbook does a great job of illustrating sigils shape.

Thanks!
420