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Mazzet Portent,
githyanki knight and founder of the Gith Recovery Deployment (definitely not
sanctioned by the Lich-Queen)
by Rip Van Wormer
"I'll tell you who the Lady of Pain is, berk.
She's Gith the Unshackler, blessed mother of our people, betrayed and
imprisoned by Tiamat. Evidence? She's more powerful than the sodding gods,
berk. She has power over the planes themselves, berk. Doesn't that sound
like Gith to you? Anyway, I saw it in pictographs in a ruined temple to a
goddess named Takhisis. Don't know what she had to do with it, but it was
there. The Gith Recovery Deployment is going follow her psychic spore down
to Baator, where she's astrally projecting herself from. Then there's going
to be hell to pay."
Turpental, an
Outspoken Lower Ward Tout
by Child of Morpheus
"Here's the dark on the Lady for all those berks
who couldn't click to it themselves: Well, there is Rule-of-Three and
Unity-of-Rings and then there is the Centre-of-All, most powerful being in the
Multiverse who lives at the centre of the Multiverse at the base of the Spire.
Only he doesn't live at the base of the Spire, rather at the top of it in
Sigil and he's a she: The Lady of Pain."
Author's Note: Check out Uncaged: Faces of
Sigil.
Xoastor, Historian known
for his Unlikely Flights of Fancy
"The Lady of Pain was Queen of the Bladelings.
See, once upon a time the bladeling city Zoronor perched in the same place
as Sigil. It was there for longer than anyone can remembers, but all this
happened so long ago that nobody living remembers it either. The Lady ruled
the bladelings, being one of them herself, only then her whole body was
covered with blades.
"Now Zoronor's spherical and it didn't balance
that well up there on top of the Spire. In fact, it got knocked off. Some
say it was by the Lady herself (the bladelings didn't make good servants),
some claim it was a mighty storm (the likes of which have never been seen
since), yet others say the perpetrator's long dead. Whoever it was, Zoronor
got shunted from it's rightful place at the centre of the planes into the
lowest layers of Acheron.
"Anyway, the Lady rebuilt a city, this time
better balanced, and abandoned the bladelings in Acheron. The dabus were her
new children. She took more humanoid form, but was never able to rid herself
of the blades around her neck. Maybe they're blades of office?
"The darkest chant goes that Zoronor itself
replaced an earlier city, which also fell off. That'd make Sigil the Third
Incarnation of the City at the Centre; makes a blood wonder where the first
one went."
Quoth, a Keeper of the
Library Sanctitous, in the Lady's Ward
"I couldn't give a damn what any other barmy sod
tells you, I know the true story of the Lady. It's real ancient, though, so
the translation I've done might not be perfect. But it makes bloody sense,
which is more than can be said for most of the chant you've been blathering
so far.
"She weren't always called the Lady of Pain, see.
Way back, even before the Blood War, she used to be simply the Lady. The
Multiverse was a much kinder place then, as no cutter ever got hurt by
anything. The Lady was one of the First born of the Abyss. The first what,
you ask? I don't know everything, sod: the books just say she was one of the
First. Anyways, the Abyssal Ones wanted to disrupt the inherent niceness of
the Multiverse. See, they wanted to inject a bit of respect for their
nastiness into the happy-go-lucky souls who frolicked all day. Good thing
that, I say. Whatever.
"The Ones were charged with inventing the weapons
to command respect. One of 'em created Fear, and the Planes themselves
trembled when it was released. Another forged Hate, and that's when the
Blood War began. The Lady gave birth to Pain, which inflicted misery and
agony on every beast that roamed and bird that flew. The Age of Innocence
was ended. The books are a bit hazy as to what happened to the Lady's
Sisters, Hate and Fear, but one thing's true...she's still kicking up her
skirts."
"Thing is, there's Sigil to account for, ain't
there. Well berk, that's all written down too. See, the Lady might not be
the friendliest blood you'll ever meet, but she ain't all bad, neither.
'Least, she ain't these days. It seems she must've repented a little, seeing
the horror that the multiverse'd been subjected to. All creatures
continually in pain? Not a picnic, I'll tell you that for free.
"So she tried to destroy her philosophical child.
She tried time and time again, only each time it became stronger. Seemed
that Pain was destined to be inflicted forevermore. That weren't good enough
for the Lady. She had to find some way to lessen the suffering of the
multiverse. Like a true martyr, she gave up her own eternity. The Pain she'd
released she took back into herself, and she locked herself and the Pain
away. She created Sigil to protect the rest of the Multiverse from her
folly. She changed from the Lady OF Pain to the Lady IN Pain. They used to
call her that when Aoskar still walked, you know.
"'Course, the 'verse is a big place, ad she
didn't catch all the pain in her net. Some remains...so to this day, when
you get hurt, you feel pain. You might complain at that, but it's a damn
sight better than it used to be, mark my words.
"Still, a martyr though she may have been, she
found the Pain only grew with the years. She spent her life in agony,
experiencing the fierce ravages of her child at the slightest action. She
had to lift her burden by passing it to another. Now, at that time there
weren't any creatures strong enough to take the Pain. She tricked Aoskar,
her old enemy, into taking it, but it killed him, and he was a Power! The
only other thing big enough was the Multiverse itself, so that's what she
did.
"The Lady released her agony into the fabric of
the Planes, opening cuts and gashes into them. Today we call them her
Portals, and most bloods assume they're benign. In fact they're the seeping
wounds of the Planes, where the tissue of reality's been slashed and a blood
can slip through, if he knows how.
"At least that's why my book says. The title?
It's called The True History of the Multiverse, According to the First of
the Baernaloths. A baernoloth? Don't ask me, I haven't the foggiest who they
are!"
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