The Lady of Pain and "stats"

Technically she is above deity status and beyond game statistics because she is the DM's avatar.

-420

Nobody knows if the Lady of Pain can be killed, destroyed, or whatever. She can, seemingly, be threatened with such, and will respond to those threats. That's one thing that happened in Faction War.

The Lady of Pain's lack of formal statistics--hit points, spell lists, and the like--is ironically one of the reasons not giving her statistics is so important. Nobody knows exactly what her powers are. As local talk goes, though obviously no one can prove it, she bars gods from the city and controls all the portals. Is that because she's far beyond even the gods in terms of powers and the very fabric of the multiverse is as her plaything? Maybe. Maybe it's an effect of some bond she has with the city. Maybe it's all a sham. Maybe the only reason she stays in power is because she convinces everyone that it's futile to test her.

Besides that, people who go against her interests tend to disappear. "Tend to" is significant, because she doesn't always respond immediately, or even respond at all. Again, her method of putting down threats is an overly theatrical public flaying or a grandiose banishment to some dismal prison-plane. Common knowledge says that she's really that powerful, but
some of the more fanciful theories depict her as several piggybacking ratatosks in an elaborate disguise.

So, in a contradictory sort of way, the only thing that can be said for sure about the Lady's powers is that they're unknown. The only thing that is always said about her origins is that they're unknown. The only thing that can ever be said consistently about her at all is the mystery of her. That's why it's such a taboo subject for Planescapers.

Even the gods aren't all-knowing: they get betrayed all the time. Even the gods aren't all-powerful: a trip to the Astral Plane reveals their horrific corpses. But, in a setting where the characters tromp through the realms of those gods, some mechanic must exist where the mighty cannot trample over the PCs with impunity. That's precisely how Planescape allows planar adventuring at low levels but other settings do not. That's why one of Planescape's most important tenets is that there's always a bigger fish.

But is there a bigger fish? In my campaign, probably not. The Lady of Pain serves as a nice "cap fish," setting a standard for who's badder than whom. It doesn't necessarily mean that she weilds the same world-shaping powers as the gods (though maybe she does), but it does mean that she establishes Sigil as a safe haven for the campaign. It's important to have the Lady of Pain be a mystery because it frees her to fend off threats from over-ambitious powers without needing to explain why she, without anyone able to oppose her, doesn't make a bid for rulership herself. She gives the solution without becoming part of the problem. No one has to be bigger than the Lady because she doesn't need babysitting.

In WoTC book: Planar Handbook, they state lady´s aligment: it´s LN. And that is one piece of mystery forever lost. And it could wery well be begining of end, becaouse the thing that scares me most is: Wizards could at anytime write Lady´s stats in a blink of an eye if they like (for the sake of some crummy adventure) and they would not even care.

In short: anyone can give Lady "official" stats, but is it realy worth it; turning her into "run of the mill" high level monster for epic PC to bash, that is.

I still seem to only have the option to quote my own posts, have to quote manually:

Planar Handbook (pg. 142)

Think of it this way, giving The Lady of Pain any stats is a contradiction. What better way to represent the ruler of the Plane of Concordant Opposition? (Or at least its capital city.)

-420

And, of course, there is the very sad truth that once you give an entity stats - any entity - some barmy players are going to get it in their brain box to try and take her down. With enough power, enough people owing you favors and enough ingenuity, pcs can topple anything ... and do you really want that to be an option?

The Bladed Lady is a story element, flavor for the setting. If you want a campaign that evolves around her being taken down, create one - no need to give the item, spell, or whatever dark one uses to knock her down, stats: simply state, that's its power - created to unseat the "ruler" of Sigil. (or any ruler of anything, whatever you want) If you want it to have side powers, stat those up as you like, but the core effect should be beyond mechanical deffinition.

It is like the Dark Powers of Ravenloft - once they started heavily suggesting that these "DPs" were actually gods, (or even more than one god) then all sorts of problems arose. Now one can hardly escape this belief and the idiocy that goes along with it. If a person wants to define the Lady in their games, let them, but to put anything concreate down in writing is to set up every fan for a fall.

(I have one pc who can't stand the idea that I've not decided anything solid about the Lady of Pain - he insists that I, as gm, have to know - even if no one else ever finds out)

I think you're still missing the point, Anime Fan. The Lady of Pain and the setting of Planescape are inextricably linked. Other campaign settings, including the generic 3.5e D&D multiverse, often include both Sigil and even the Lady. However, their presence is not central to those campaigns and thus easily removed. For those other settings, the Lady could very well be a very tough monster or a deity with stats. For Planescape, however, she should always remain a mystery. Not just a deus ex machina and DM's handy helper, she is a symbol for the setting. Planescape would not just be weakened by her revelation or death, it would cease to be itself, devolving into just another planehopping campaign.

Would Planescape be Planescape without, say, General of Gehenna, or if he had stats? Yes. It would be slightly weaker in terms of flavour, but it would nevertheless remain itself. Just as taking Drizzd Do'Urden out of the Forgotten Realms would weaken it but not change it completely. Changing, simplifying, or discarding the history of the setting, or Abeir-Toril itself, would be unforgivable. It is the defining feature of the Realms! Likewise, explaining or killing the Lady, or Sigil for that matter, would be likewise unforgivable. They are the defining features of Planescape, along with its penchant for the philosophical.

The major difference, however, is that the generic 3.5e multiverse is based very closely on the Planescape one. Granted, Planescape itself is based on earlier versions of the multiverse with changes, but it attempted to standardize and link together the other settings, claiming the Outer Planes for itself. WotC continued from the Planescape multiverse, but it removed some of the features that defined it. Thus, they were able to call it something other than Planescape while still using any of the details that it cultivated and changing or removing others completely. That is where the confusion stems from... people think that if they go into the Outer Planes, they are basically playing in the Planescape setting. That is not so, not necessarily. Just because there are orcs does not mean that we are in Middle Earth.

That is where, in my opinion, Planewalker comes in. It retains the ideas behind Planescape and only converts them into the 'new' 3.5e ruleset. Yes, many of us often borrow from some of the new material, particularly the Fiendish Codexes, but in my case, and I'm sure that many others here would agree, the material we borrow is only that which adds to the setting rather than retconning it. Every DM, of course, is and should be able to change any 'official' setting to his or her desire, but something can only take so many changes before ceasing to be itself.

Here is another reason why Lady does not have stats: because two main features of PS is "Ideas and Mystery" of planes.
I mean: who has not created one idea or another about Lady origins (from Ratatosk and Miniature Giant Space Hamster to Poseidon s daughter theory and that she is one of Dark Powers of Ravenloft), and all of them has merit but some mysteries is not for knowing.
Lady of Pain is exactly that: she represents that creative process of idea, an urge to know the unknown and will to go trough the portal into unknown,
and it would not be mysterious (not to mention unfun) if all secrets are written.

No. You're mistaken. The gods, for the most part, were not given stats in 2nd edition Legends & Lore, nor in Monster Mythology. Only avatars.

A few demigods got stats for their "true forms," because they were considered to be too minor to have avatars (Hercules and the Dragon Kings, for example, and Iuz). They're exceptions, and nothing above demigod status got that treatment.

This was universally true throughout 2nd edition, and actually began before 2e even came out, in the Greyhawk Adventures hardcover. As a rule, 2nd edition gods didn't have stats. They were considered to be unkillable by anything of lesser rank.

That was the cumulation of a trend throughout 1e. Deities & Demigods gods were stronger than the 0e Gods, Demigods, and Heroes gods. The World of Greyhawk gods were stronger than that, and the 1e Manual of the Planes gods were stronger still. When Greyhawk Adventures came out, they decided that gods were simply beyond stats, too powerful for game rules to measure. They stuck with this consistently until 3rd edition Deities & Demigods was published.

Yog-Sothoth would be much more appropriate as the guardian of a city of portals.

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. "
—H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dunwich Horror"

Yep, that soud´s like ol´ Yoggie to me.

Maybe Lady is female manifestation of Yog-Sothoth (male is called Tawil at´umr wich Yoggie uses when he wishes to talk to mortals, and Mythos dieties have allways had more than one avatar), and the Sigil is actualy great city of ancients in land of Kadath (wich is located on imposibly tall mountain).

This is OK idea if you want to Cthulhu mythos play mayor part in Planescape. In that case far relam is much closer than would anyone think or like.

Oh, and would it be Ok for Yog-Sothoth to "live" on astral/ethereal since: he resides in space between spaces (and all other sleeping ancient ones-Dead gods).

Ia, Ia Cthulhu fthagn!!! Nyar!!!

Slaadi and Dabus?

See, I've always wondered about this myself. At the Mountains of Madness implies that both sites are in Antarctica, although Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath places them in the Dreamlands.

Speaking of confusion of terms... First off, the Ancient Ones are a separate group from the Great Old Ones, a term which always refers to Cthulhu and his brethren; the Ancient Ones are a group led by Tawil at'Umr (according to most an avatar of Yog-Sothoth), and are "Transmogrified beings who have passed through the Ultimate Gate guarded by Tawil at'Umr" (Encyclopedia Cthulhiana 2nd ed., pg. . The Ancient Ones might be the Great Old Ones, but that is unproven theory.

Now, as for the Elder Things, that is by no means a term Chaosium created; that is the proper name of the race, as used by Lovecraft himself in At the Mountains of Madness. Now, the confusing bit is that both these creatures and the Great Old Ones are called simply the "Old Ones"--the Great Old Ones in "The Call of Cthulhu," the Elder Things also in Mountains. They aren't the only entities and creatures called "Old Ones" in the Mythos, though, and the term has also been applied to creatures associated with Yog-Sothoth ("The Dunwich Horror"), the people of K'n-yan ("The Mound"), and a group of beings that kept the Deep Ones in check ("The Shadow Over Innsmouth").

And--apologies for taking the thread even further away from the topic of the Lady and the possibility of statting Her up. I was just excited to see something about which I had enough knowledge that I felt confident posting about it, heh...

Threads grow That's why they're threads... though if the O.Poster still wants to focus on his original question one can always spin off a new thread and link to it.

Mutants and Masterminds (a game I've been playing a lot lately) has the concept of a Power Level X being, meaning that the character/creature has whatever stats or abilities were needed for the story. Like Mxyzptlk or whatever his name was, the Cosmic Imp. That's what I see the Lady of Pain as, as equal parts setting/plot device and mysterious enigmanic character. I would freeform any mechanical representations of her to fit the situation of how Sigil is doing. It's also possible that given on the circumstances the Lady might have several different sets of stat writeups. That's probably how I would handle it is to write up a seperate stat block to fit the needs for any set encounter if I was going to use stats.