Primes, if they ask planars where the nearest evil dragon is, will often meet confused looks at best, directions to the nearest portal to Baator at worst.

It is a strange fact that dragons are rare in the Outer Planes. Most planars have never heard of one, and those who have, tend to lump them with fiends or celestials.

Surely the Outer Planes would have some mention of these magnificent and terrifying beasts, since they populate and dominate so many Prime worlds. It is as if there is some unseen hand preventing their existence or memory in the Planes of Belief...

Neutrality

Considering the battle between Order and Chaos, what do the self-proposed forces of Neutrality do?

Those from the Prime often mistake Neutrality for indecision, or uninvolvement, although that is a legitimate course of action. However, in the Outer Planes, Neutrality means much more.

Some powers of Neutrality, such as the enigmatic Xan Yae, paradoxically find more strength from the Outer Planes than the Prime. In the Planes of Belief, Neutrality takes on a militant aspect, to prevent Order from stifling the rest of the multiverse, and the forces of Chaos from turning it all into an anarchic mess.

Neutrality here means more than Balance, it means trying to find some use of all sides, to meld the seemingly impossible into a new form, unseen and unheard of, until now.

Long Silent Sigil

What is it? There are words for it. If you ask the Face at the City of Righteous Harmony, it would tell you that it is a prison for some, and home for others. Only this ex-baatezu could tell you anything in detail, even if it took a millenium to understand its cryptic messages.

Those few scholars who know anything think it is just another work for the Lady's Mazes. Others think it is a shadow version of Sigil, where trees grow but civilization decays.

No one even knows where the name came from. In fact, some people believe that it's just a trap. If you research it enough, and find its true name, then you'll get sucked into it.

So, if it is really just another name for the Lady's Mazes, then who lives there? If it is a shadow version of the Cage, then who rules? And if it is a prison, what is the door out?

the Abyss

It needs no other nicknames. The Abyss is where power, lusts, greed, and death run rampant. There are are only three types of beings in the Abyss; the powerful who personally dominate everything and everyone, the powerless who band together hoping not to get a shiv in the back, and the dead.

There is only one glimmer of hope in the infinite layers of the Abyss. The Desderain, a band of freedom fighters, who attempt to bring lost souls out of the Abyss, who attempt to thwart the tanar'ri any chance they get, who, for whatever reasons, choose to oppose unstoppable evil.

Some say that these madmen, who carry their cold-forged iron weapons in secret, are actually a front for some ascending fiend, using the guise of freedom to destroy its enemies.

One thing is for certain, in order to survive, the Desderain has had to resort to extreme measures. Perhaps the only way to fight evil is to become evil...

the Astral

Often called the Silver Void, or the backdrop of the multiverse, the Astral is the plane of magic and thought, of possibilities, where anything the imagination can, and will, imagine will, and has, occured.

Time and space has no meaning here, only perception and ideas.

Thusly, the Astral is a very unpredictable place. The rules differ depending on where one is.

On a dead god, anything goes. Often, the corpse creates its own reality, based on what it was in life. If it was a god of water, then when berks land on the corpse, they may find themselves immersed in endless water. If a god of war, they may find themselves in the middle of a battlefield.

However, since the god is dead, usually the reality is a twisted nightmare version of that reality, since death is never quite a pleasant experience.

The Astral is also home to the githyanki, cousins to the githzerai. These beings are militant, cruel, and steeped in arcane power. There is only one thing absolute with these beings; they serve their own kind.

The Rules of the Multiverse

There are arguments about the validity of the following three rules. Some don't believe it, others swear by it, and still others ignore it.

The Rule of Three
Things come in threes. Good, Neutral, Evil. Law, Chaos, Neutrality. Prime, Astral, Outer Planes. Baatezu, Yugoloth, Tanar'ri. It's not a hard and fast rule, but if you see two things, then look for a third.

Unity of the Rings
The Outer Planes tend to be interconnected. Oftentimes, the beginning of a journey has something to do with the end. Or the answer to a question was something revealed when you first asked the question. What this really means is that you'll find eerie coincidences that suggest some-thing uniting your quest into a related package.

The Center of All
There is no center of the multiverse, and thus, everything is the center. Things tend to revolve around a common truth, the theme of a journey. The success or defeat of a mission may lie in a single object, person, or idea.

These themes are prevalent in any journey in the multiverse. Whether or not they help you is a different matter...

The Spider Asylum

The Bleak Cabal has a building in Pandemonium designed to house the most violent or severe cases of madness. Here, the Bleakers are given carte blanche to cure these unfortuntes.

The Asylum is so named because it is eight structures connected to a central body.

Rumors abound that this is really a madness engine, powered by the insane, to produce some powerful magic only the Bleakers could envision.

In either case, this place is the home of the most brilliant and depraved minds of the Chaos Planes.

Pandemonium

The Plane of Madness, or the Neverending Caverns, is just that. It is empty and desolate, where a body can wander for the rest of her life and never see a soul. And perhaps those are the lucky ones.

Others are caught in a neverending cycle of fear and insanity, brought on by the environment, or by other beings, for what is hell, but other people?

Pandemonium is usually where something or someone is disposed of, but still important to be useful later on. It's the trash dump of the universe.

The Bleak Cabal call this place kip, or home, simply because they find a fascination, or indentification, with madness. Some come here for inspiration, or a chance to be alone.

No one comes there for peace and quiet.

UnderSigil

No one who lives in Sigil calls the caverns beneath the streets UnderSigil. Most of the time it is "down below" or "down under."

It is a mish mash of old Sigil, tombs, and long forgotten buildings, built over by the Lady of Pain's servants, the dabus. No one is sure why they continually build, repair, destroy, and redesign, though some like to think of Sigil as the brain and the body of the Lady, and the dabus the blood, changing the guts and innards of the mysterious figure.

If that is true, then UnderSigil is the dead skin, shedded and left to turn to dust...

Primer to the Outlands

Planewalker brought a download from Wizards of the Coast to my attention. It is the tracks from the CD that came with the Primer to the Outlands. Get it here.

The Kriegstanz

Sigil has been in a philisophical cold war for 600 to 700 years. Before then, Sigil had hundreds of Factions, all vieing for some political and intelletual power. This led to bloodshed and turmoil. Eventually, the Lady of Pain decreed that should only be 15 Factions, and that period of time is known as the Great Upheaval.

A lot was sacrificed during that time. The Mercykillers, for example, was formed when two smaller Factions, the Sodkillers and the Sons of Mercy both hammered out a charter.

The Sodkillers were a mercenary bunch, pretty much hired assassins that followed their contracts to the letter. The Sons of Mercy were a crew of paladins that attempted to right wrongs and save those innocently sentenced. Only the Great Upheaval could have welded these two disperate, and desperate, groups together.

Since then, the 15 Factions have slowly sought out a crack in the multiverse that would prove them right. Meanwhile, they look for cracks in the other Factions. This is the kriegstanz.

the Temple of Flame

The Temple of Flame is said to be build from the "mind" of a long-dead god called the Burning One, who was thrown into Gehenna to burn for centuries. To the Followers of the Flame, the Burning One represents the epitome of suffering, for the pains of a god must be more valuable than the pleasures of a mortal.

In many ways, the Follwers are the ethic opposite of the Dustman. Both believe that life is suffering and pale imitation of what "life should be." However, the Dustman believe that one can transcend this painful life, and cross over through True Death.

The Followers agree, except that if life is about suffering, perhaps more suffering is the answer. Perhaps we're just detracting from this godly plan by seeking pleasure or avoiding pain.

There is a disagreement amongst the Followers. One side believes they should seek out the Burning One, find His body and spirit and seek out His wisdom.

The other side would rather leave that alone. For isn't it the greatest suffering not truly knowing if you are on the right path?

Gehenna, the Everburning Mountain, the Plane of Suffering...

Gehenna is the smallest of the Outer Planes, insofar that it has a definite physical boundary; it is one giant volcano. Surrounding it are the smokes and mists of age-old eruptions. Conceptually, one can fly off the mountain and drift forever. Perhaps there is more to the plane, but no one has ever come back over the edge of the mountain...

In some ways, Gehenna is the ideal opposite of Mount Celestia, the Plane of Orderly Benefice. On one hand, it is also a mountain, but one with treacherous slopes (there is not a flat piece of land anywhere), and dangerous lava and acid bursts. Whereas Mount Celestia is about ascending the Mount in ever increasing tests for purity, Gehenna is a meaningless struggle for existence, or domination.

Some sods believe Gehenna is the ultimate test of free will. The whole plane seems to revell in crushing the spirits of its inhabitants. If you can survive, and perhaps prosper, then perhaps you have the right to conquer the multiverse.

Sigil, the Cage, the Domain of the Lady of Pain...

This true neutral city serves as the Casablanca of the multiverse. Shady and heroic deals are made to make or break the one true cause, of which no two beings can agree on.

Everyone believes in something, and everyone acts on that something, because there are enough people out there that share your views. And maybe, just maybe, if enough people believe, the multiverse will change to your ideal.

That's why the Outer Planes are always in conflict.

Our protagonists begin their Planescape career in the Lower Ward. The Lower Ward is the lower class neighborhood of Sigil, where the near bottom of the economic ladder attempt to survive and prosper. Bordering the Lower Ward is the Hive, the barrios and ghettos of Sigil, where violence, destruction, riots, and misery are the facts of life. Be grateful of where you are.

The standard coin in the Lower Ward is in silver. Gold is the property of the Market and Lady's Ward, where the rich and influential shape Sigil and the multiverse. The Fated like to point this Ward out as the place where a body can pull herself up by her own bootstraps, and succeed. But, the Fated isn't based in the Lower Ward...

Here is a map of Sigil I found online. It does not have the street names, but it dows have the Faction HQ's, and the Wards.