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Welcome
to the Staircase
By Dilfar Kline, dwarven
stairclimber
by Jon
Winter
Listen,
berk. I've got better things to do than bother repeating
the words from some other cutter's mouth. There's plenty
of sources of chant about the basics of climbing the
endless stair [see Tales from the Infinite
Staircase, pages 10 and 15-19 for information].
What I will tell you about, for the right jink, of
course, are some of the pitfalls and dangers of travel on
the stair. As any planar (and even most primes) knows,
where there's a way, you'd better make a will.
The
lillendi are snakey women who see themselves as
the guardians of the Stair, and you'd better believe
they're a sight more elegant than the chittering ratatosk
of Yggdrasil! Some peery bashers have commented on their
startling resemblance to marilith tanar'ri (forget to
count the arms and you'd be forgiven for running a mile),
but this is "apparently" a mere coincidence. Yeah, right.
If you're as paranoid as you should be on the Planes of
Chaos, you'd do well to assume otherwise; I've heard
enough rumours of beguiling lillendi spiriting off or
charming unwary planewalkers -- who're never seen again
-- to doubt their purely good intentions. And notice how
you never see a male...?
But
I'm starting to rant. Don't trust the lillendi, that's my
first piece of advice. Second is to take a stout pair of
walking boots. While climbing the stair isn't as hard on
the feet as hiking up Olympus or Yggdrasil -- there's a
handrail in many places, for starters -- you do a lot
more climbing. Other than infrequent landings, you'll
find yourself going up or down rather than along. That
makes the Stair all but impractical for carrying large
cargoes, because horses and even mules are hopeless with
steps, and you'll be in a real tanar'ri's picnic if you
try and lug a cart up or down 'em!
Like
the other planar pathways, and unlike Sigil's portals,
the Infinite Staircase leads only to specific places on
the planes. A curious prerequisite to a Stair connection
is that a place must be unusually creative, imaginative,
or beautiful. Nobody really knows why this is so, or even
whether the Staircase only seeks places like this, or
whether it's changed normal locations merely by virtue of
being connected to them. In any case it's likely to be
something to do with Selune, the mysterious power of the
night who dwells in the Gates of the Moon, the foundation
of the Staircase on Ysgard.
Unlike
Yggdrasil and Mount Olympus, the entry points to other
planes aren't colour pools. In fact, they're more like
Sigil's portals than colour pools, except they don't need
a key to operate, and a portal sense spell won't
do you any good. Doorways on landings and sometimes on or
under the staircases themselves act as gate-portals to
the plane the Stairway touches. Looking back from said
plane it's usually near impossible to find the hole in
reality that leads back to the Stair. In fact, some of
these doorways are one-way only.
Guides
on the Stair are relatively easy to come across. The best
source, of course, is the Planewalkers' Guide itself,
which has its headquarters based on a large landing on
the Stair. [See TftIS page 20 for details on
this organisation]. But mind you pay 'em well,
because they're valuable friends and dangerous enemies to
make...
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The
Corkscrew
by Belarius
Hearsay:
Everyone
knows the Infinite Staircase bends and contorts along
some hidden dimensions in order to fold back on itself,
but usually a body can't see that bending. Well, the
Corkscrew's different. A staircase that curls in on
itself, so the rest is above you like the caverns of
Pandemonium. Folks say that it ain't natural, that it's a
sign of some problem on the Staircase. A few barmies even
say that this is proof that the whole structure rearin'
to collapse in on itself, killing everyone travelling on
it. But that's barmy talk...isn't it?
Description:
One
of the stranger parts of the Staircase, this length of
stair, a polished, lustrous metal affair decorated with
silvery inlays and accented with obsidian chips,
obviously twists into a screw shape. Gravity always seems
to be pointed down, but as a body moves, the direction
down changes, much like the caverns of Pandemonium. The
rest of the stairs seems to rotate around the walking
person, instead of the person spinning. In a few moment,
the stairclimber finds themselves directly above (below?)
their previous location, which is only about 40 feet
away.
The
effect has been compared to a rope which has been twisted
too much, causing it to curl. This comparison, along with
the ominous creaking of the stairs, makes many people
believe something is affecting the dimensional folds of
the Infinite Staircase, and that the Corkscrew is the
fulcrum of that effect. If this is true, the whole
Staircase is liable to snap and collapse inward, a wild
maelstrom of wood, stone, and metal. Other shake their
heads and argue that the stability of the Corkscrew is
proof that the folds are holding and that this is simply
a particularly sharply folded region. Either way, most
about the twisting stairs.
Oddly,
the Corkscrew has doors which connect directly onto the
sides of the stairs, instead of onto a landing. Many of
these stairs are unexplored, but those that are have been
said to lead to various elemental planes (at least three
door supposedly go to places in Quasielemental
Lightning), along with other strange places (including,
in surprising proximity, doors to the Sixth layer of Mt.
Celestia and the First layer of the Abyss).
Special
Features:
One
thing making this stretch of stairs particularly
treacherous is the fact that gravity is acting on a body
from all directions, though not with equal strength. This
means that even a small jump goes farther. The exact
ration varies, but a safe estimate is that for every foot
you would normally jump, you instead jump a foot and a
half. This slight increase has tricked many travellers,
who overshot the stairs on a sideways jump and fell into
the depths of the Stairs. If a body can jump very
high, they might even pass through the middle area of no
gravity and fall to the other side (again, an action
which risks death by missing the stairs and falling into
the void). There is an upside to this, however. Those
going up by foot become exhausted after 50% more time
than normal, and skilled fliers (MC B or better) can
manoeuvre into the very centre of the Corkscrew, where
the effect of gravity is non-existent, and glide with no
effort at all. In fact, incredible speeds can be achieved
in this manner.
A
less fantastic but nevertheless noteworthy aspect of this
region is that, with a multitude of door which do not
connect to landings, a body has a much high chance of
meeting a variety of strange beings, from Archons to
Tanar'ri, with a lightning mephit thrown in for good
measure. Keeping this in mind (especial given the
conductive nature of the stairs around lightning-based
beings), this region gets more attention than most
travellers like.
The
Mistress of Cards
by Jeremiah
Golden
Mistress of
Cards (Planar / female
half-elf / B12 / Planewalker's Guild / CG)
A
mysterious figure often seen on the Infinite Staircase,
her name and history remain unknown. Her goal however is
known by many, especially by those in the Planewalker's
Guild, who say when they first came to the Staircase from
Sigil 300 years ago she was already there. They tell a
tale of when she first went through the gates of the Moon
centuries ago, she vowed that as she travelled up the
stair, she would go through every gate and portal,
entertaining those on the other side, then coming back
and continuing upward. Her goal is the Moon at the top of
the stair, a moon not like those in the crystal spheres
of the prime, but a moon of the Heavens, her ultimate
goal. Though the top of the stair is her goal, she only
feels she can rightfully reach it after she has gone
through every door of the stair, and entertained
everywhere the staircase reaches.
"She climbs on
infinite stair made of cards
Reaching towards from the gates to the moon
Singing and Dancing her way as a bard's
The Mistress of Cards we will see soon"
- Part of the
Planewalker's Ballad
She
deals in all trades of the bard, from singing to
juggling, though she is often said to have an affinity
for cards, and thus her name. She is said to have once
gone through a door and entertained Loki in his own
realm, beating him at a game of cards. Her travel up the
stair has lead her to many a place on the planes and
crystal spheres, and she can spin a tale about any event
that has happened on the planes or elsewhere. Though her
travels have taken her farther up the stair then the
Planewalker's Guild's headquarters, the guild members
keep track of her progress and can tell a cutter usually
where she was last seen climbing the stair.
Often
when she is seen on the stair she will approach a
traveller, asking if they have news of the Planewalker's
Guild, or if they care to be entertained. Entertaining is
her life's pleasure, and she enjoys showing off her
talents to anyone who will watch. She also can tell a
traveller the location of doors lower down on the stair,
and were they lead, however in trade she expects them to
tell her news of doors farther up, or maybe a tale or
song. Though she is usually willing to help a someone on
the stair or the other side of a door, she is always
drawn back to the stair and her goal to reach it's
infinite heights.
She
is described as having long red hair, a trait from her
human mother, with a slender face with the slightly
pointed ears of the elves. She dresses in the style of a
planewalker, A multicoloured garb of blues and reds,
simple leggings that hang loose and baggy, a shirt
ruffled and buttoned, with a belt of twin tassels that
stream behind her. Her cloak is patterned with pictures
of swords, clubs, staves, and cups, with an edge a
pattern of spiralling red lines. She is usually seen with
no weapons, though she hides a number of daggers on her
person, and she has been fabled to be master of sword,
staff and club, learning their techniques over her long
journey up the stair.
Cadeon
Nor
by Tom
Bubul
Cadeon
Nor, Inventor (Prime / male
human / 0-level [sage] / LN)
"If
you happen to meet an old man scrawling drawings with his
feet hanging off over the edge, you can be sure you've
met old Cadeon, a prime who takes kip here on the stairs
trying to tumble to the dark of how to solve his dream of
flying."
Cadeon
is a prime inventor trying to build the perfect flying
machine. From what prime he hails from, that's not known.
He got to the Stair one day through a portal in his study
that led to the Stair. He decided that there was no
better place to set up his kip than this new place (he
decided against the Plane of Air because 'on Air, man
already flies, how would I test my inventions?'), as it
had portals to everywhere in the Multiverse that has some
sort of creativity in it... thus, there should be an
infinity of like minded people to share his ideas with,
his ideas of the flying man.
The
old man can be found sitting on various ledges of the
steps, making detailed drawings, prototypes, and models
of the perfect flying machine, a machine that'll allow
human men to fly. The lillendi watch him with both
amusement and admiration.... not many folks actually sit
around on the staircase and draw pictures and build
machines, occasionally poking through a portal to grab a
bite to eat or a spare part, never giving up.
Cadeon,
upon 'finishing' his masterpieces, always goes to the
edge of his current ledge and jumps off his ledge. He
hasn't yet been successful, he always jumps off with a
grin of glee, pulling levers, peddling like mad, and
blowing into sails... but the best he's ever done was
crashing to a stair below without his model
smashing.
It
turns out that even though he constantly suffers injury
at the hand of his imagination, he hasn't ever suffered
mortal injury to keep him dead. The lillendi heal him and
bring him home to his kip on that little ledge of the
stair whenever they find his twisted body laying sprawled
on their steps, with a smashed machine nearby, and a
wily, conniving grin on his face... the grin of a
determined man.
While
Cadeon doesn't care much for the goings on of such things
as the Planewalker's Guild, the factions, or even folks
other than the lillendi walking the Stair, he's friendly
enough to passers by, and many have been entertained
(sometimes unwillingly) by detailed descriptions and
explanations of his drawings and his new prototype. He
always concludes these long winded speeches with a
demonstration of his genius, he jumps with his machine
out into the gap, yells his famous line ("Look! It
works!"), plummets down to a lower level, has his machine
smashed, only to be returned to his station by the
lillendi to start anew... and there's nothing in the
Multiverse he loves more than starting again, the feeling
that he'll eventually stumble over that right diagram,
and accomplish his goal.
Famous
Doorways
by
Belarius
The Clockwork
Door
This
door was, originally, a circular frame which had an
extensive clockwork mechanism operating inside of it.
Those who walked through the machine at a precise and
constant speed (specifically, a movement rate of 7)
avoided harm and found themselves in the back room of one
of the only human-operated inns in all of Regulus, realm
of the modrons. However, since the modrons have
discovered this link to an 'unsuitably chaotic location,'
they have constructed a much more elaborate structure
around the door, adding to the original gearwork.
Now
encompassing a quarter of the average-sized landing it
connects to, the Clockwork Door is a mammoth affair,
spinning and whirring at varying speeds to keep out
intruders who do not move through it in a very orderly
but less easily guessed sequence. Since the modrons have
effectively cut off this door from common use, it now
serves as a landmark to those travelling on the
stairs.
After
all, it hangs over the edge of the landing far enough to
be seen from a distance, makes a constant noise that can
be heard from far away, and uses enough oil that those
with sharp noses can even smell it before they see
it!
The Liquid
Archway
An
open doorway to the Elemental Plane of Water, this arch
looks, from the outside, to be a free-standing arch of
floating water. It is by no means solid, and a body can
pass their hand through it easily, but it can't be
knocked down. Also an oddity of the door is that the
infinite water on the other side of the doorway never
flows through onto the Staircase (in which case it would
probably cause a waterfall onto the rest of the
stairs).
Sharp
cutters have observed that the lillendi have no control
over where the staircase connects to, but that if they
don't place certain magical barriers in place, the whole
staircase risks flooding with any number of liquids (not
to mention poisonous gasses or snow). So, this odd
free-standing and circular pond rests calmly on the edge
of an otherwise dry landing, ebbing and flowing but never
falling.
Byron the
Watchful
Possibly
the most unique of doors on the Infinite Staircase, Byron
was, originally, a wizard-created creature similar to a
golem, who's duty was to watch over a specific doorway in
a tower resting in Arborea. Byron, in fact, WAS the
doorway, an arch of smooth stone with a half dozen arms
(each wielding a weapon) and a gargoyle-like head. A
gregarious wizard, Byron's creator gave his creation
enough intelligence to hold conversation and to
interrogate those who tried to pass beneath the
arch.
In
time, however, Byron's creator died, and the golem lost
its purpose. When his master's work has rotted to dust,
Byron decided that there was no real need for protection
anymore, and let any and all pass. Well, a band of
pixies, attracted by the lingering magic of the place,
set up shop and made the wizard's tower a place of rest.
They sang songs and wrote poems for their own amusement,
and eventually their creativity linked the Infinite
Staircase to the tower.
Byron
had the wonderful luck to be the doorway.
Currently,
Byron leads a double life, enjoying his new pixie friends
and protecting the newly inhabited tower from intruders
on the Staircase. A friendly basher, the ornate stone
archway enjoys conversation with passing travellers, but
one must prove their valour to Byron. This is often more
difficult than one would think, because Byron's magic
allows him to see into a person's very soul, and he
permits none with cruelty in their minds to
pass.
The
Window
One
of the discrepancies that pops up occasionally on the
Staircase is 'what is a door?' In this case, size is the
issue, and to a family of wandering avariel elves, the
open window of a giant's home is a door.
With
this in mind, we can look at the case of The Window, as
it is called. Living in the abandoned giant's house, the
elven family couldn't budge the door and frankly never
tried. Instead they used the shuttered windows as a
doorway. Well, since that time, the house has become the
centre of a small town of avariel elves, and The Window
has been connected to the Infinite Staircase by the
community's creative influence. Realise, most people
think two things when they see a giant window on the
Stair's landing: Either they've gone barmy or they've
accidentally stepped into Xaos (which isn't too
different, really). But, travellers, the Window is a
perfectly good doorway if you can fly - it's a matter of
perspective.
The Double
Landing
By
an odd loophole, one doorway and another on the Infinite
Staircase have connected, providing a long-distance link
from one part of the Staircase to another. In the one
case where this peculiar phenomenon has been observed,
the landings that the doors are attached to are both
inhabited (one by a wizard who built is tower on a
landing, the other by a bunch of Primes who discovered a
doorway in their basement and expanded their shop onto
the Staircase).
The
effect is a little disturbing, in that you can see
another landing through the doorway, but not to either
side, but it's proven safe so far. Well-lanned travellers
use the Double Landing to save time by skipping a few
flights of stairs.
The
Bytopian Tower
by Belarius
Hearsay:
This
story begins with a mage who wants to walk the planes.
This mage, he wants to be close to the action, able to
get anywhere right quick. So he says to himself one day
"I don't want to live near a portal that only goes to one
place! I'll live on the Infinite Staircase, where there's
lots of portals and don't need to fiddle with keys
and spells to find out how to use them." And off he
goes.
Well,
our mage has a problem -- where to live? He doesn't want
to live outside the Staircase (in case the portal
disconnected or some such, stranding him), but there
aren't really houses on the stairs for sale. He can't
live with the Planewalker's Guild, because there's no
place to put his laboratory. So he says to himself, "I'm
a mage! Mages live in towers all over the place! I'll
build myself a tower right here on the
stairs!"
And
that's what he does. He gets the workers and the
supplies, but runs into one last problem -- where to
build it? So the mage looks around at the Staircase and
the landings and says, "You know, towers have spiral
stairs all the time. There are sturdy spiral staircases
all over this sodding Infinite Staircase! I'll just built
my tower around one of them." So he did.
He
chooses a smallish one, so his tower can reach from one
landing to the next. He even sets up a set of stairs
running around the outside of the tower, so travellers
could use the stairs without walking through his new
living room. The tower's a grand affair, build of sturdy
stone and firmly fixed to both the top landing and the
bottom. One day, a traveller looks at the tower and slaps
his head, declaring, "That looks exactly like the
CenterSpire of Bytopia!" And so it did. And thus, the
mage, now long dead, built his home, the Bytopian
Tower.
Description:
The
chant's mostly true. The tower, some 100' tall and as
wide as 30' (to as thin as 20'), is made of stone that
matches the surrounding landings and flares out at the
top and bottom, giving the impression of being a spire of
Bytopia. The stairs that run along the outside complete
the image. To prevent unwelcome entry, the tower has no
windows (not that there's much of a view). The original
spiral staircase that now forms the spine of the tower is
still in place, but is now closed off from general entry,
the new stairs doing to duty of the old. A traveller at
heart, the old mage even made small rooms for travellers
to stop and rest in at the top and bottom -- these rooms
are supplied magically with food and have nothing to
steal, so they are nothing but free food and shelter,
essentially.
The
lillendi were apparently quite annoyed originally, on the
basis that the construction of the tower was impeding
travel on the Staircase. They sent various threats, but
got no reply. When they finally got to the scene,
however, they found the Tower completed and locked up,
with rooms for travellers and a new, larger stairway on
the outside. They decided that the Tower was a sturdy
support between the landings and that the travellers'
rooms were sufficient atonement for the previous
problems. They now maintain the outside of the tower as
they would any other part of the Staircase.
There
are to ways to actually enter the tower proper. The first
is by entering a stone dome which rests atop the original
beginning of the spiral staircase. A large stone door
(much like a vault door, really) rests firmly in pace,
and a pendulous stone knocker is used to summon the
current inhabitant. The other lies at the bottom,
opposite the entrance to the travellers' room. It, too,
is a vault-like door with a stone knocker. Since the mage
is dead, no one answers anymore. Thanks to impressive
magic and a lack of interest, none have apparently
breached either doorway in years.
Special
Features:
A
lone traveller or small group would be advised to travel
past the Bytopian Tower if they can -- the travellers'
rooms provide free food and water, allowing a traveller
to refill their rations before continuing on, not to
mention get a good night's sleep after hours of climbing
stairs. Because of the relative infrequency of travellers
who require rest (most can get to their desired location
in a day or less), those who DO need it find these rooms
comfortable and remarkably well provided for, consider
the host is long dead.
The
interior of the Tower is largely dark, but word has it
that the Wizard, though well-travelled, wasn't a great
archmage so much as he had a large inheritance -- as
such, there is no great desire to go to the effort needed
to get into the tower (which has other, more subtle wards
besides your everyday wizard locks). This much is known
(or strongly believed) about the interior,
however:
- The
mage was not a specialist, but favoured the material
schools of magic (Alteration, Conjuration, and Evocation)
than the more metaphysical or scholarly schools. Some
argue that he was, in fact, a Dimensionalist, others that
he was a Artificer, and others that he was abnormal mage.
But his schools of choice were well known.
- The
mage had more than a few magical constructs as servants
and bodyguards (most purchased from more skilled mages).
Fear of these constructs also protects the
tower.
- The
mage had allies on the Elemental plane of Earth. The
well-lanned say the Ruvkova of that plane,
specifically.
- Rich
and well-travelled, the tower contains a fair number of
objects which, while not strictly powerful or valuable,
are odd, collectable, or otherwise curious (supposedly,
these objects were collected on his travels).
The
Dark:
A
little truth known to a very select few is that, thought
the mage is dead, he still lives in his Tower. It seems
that, when he died, he became an Einherar, and, affected
by his wanderlust, went on a quest to learn his past
(during which he became significantly more powerful, no
longer having wealth to buy his way through tough times).
When he did learn who he had been, he returned to the
Tower, slipped in, and now pursues research in between
his frequent wanderings around the planes.
Another
unclear matter was the mage's speciality. The truth is
that he is indeed an Dimensionalist, using his extensive
knowledge of the planes and magical dimensions to
facilitate his travels. As such, the interior of the
Tower is larger that the exterior would suggest, and is
as once a palace for guests and a death-trap for thieves.
The very adventurers who have made it in recently haven't
made it out yet -- though some are still alive, either
lost in the seemingly endless halls of the place or
locked up in the dungeons.
The
Monster Under the Stairs
by
Tom
Bubul
"Stick
to the Styx berk, or the Oceanus, or that big mountain
and that tree on the Waste... but don't go near that
infernal Staircase, or he might come. I'm telling you,
he'll drive you out of your brainbox, just look at
me!
"Calm
down? Fine, I'll see if I can tell you a bit about the
beast without... well, anyway, the beast. On the
Staircase. Right. I'm composed now.
"I
was on my way from Bedlam to, um, somewhere on Ysgard I
think, I don't remember, but anyway, and I couldn't find
a portal. Sure enough, one of those barmy snake women
that live on that barmy pathway told me, 'why not take
the Staircase?' so how could I refuse? I was barmy then,
I didn't know the danger, the danger I say! What horrors
lie on that Staircase! Yes, that Staircase does cross
Bedlam, we turn out some pretty bizarre artwork in that
town, but I'm not going to swerve from the
topic.
"I
followed that lillyendo or whatever you call them and she
took me to the steps. She just told me to keep walking
until I saw Ysgard. But the Staircase is infinite! I
could've walked forever! I ran and I ran and I ran but I
never got anywhere, Bedlam was always right behind me! So
what's a berk to do? I just sat there, I figured 'clear
your mind man, you're under a lot of stress'. So I sat
there. And then I heard this metal thing coming down the
stairs, a little spring that just walked right down
towards me (the springs are seen in pairs sometimes I've
heard), and then I saw those two eyes, those red, burning
eyes, staring at me from between the boards! Ahh! I can
see them looking at me! And that awful voice of his! That
deep, hypnotic voice! He was calling me! So what do I do?
Do I listen to myself and run? No! I walked right over to
him, and now he's in my head! He's right here I tell you!
Right between my eyes!He gave a big grin, and it seemed
like he swallowed me whole! He lives! He lives in me, and
in you, and under those infernal stairs! Stay clear I
tell you, he'll inhabit your mind too, and you'll end up
as my cellmate!
"He's
been seen not only by myself, but by others. He's got
snakes and bugs and critters of all sorts inside of him
that bleed out when he gets cut. He wears the blackest of
black and his eyes.. oh, powers, those burning red eyes..
and that grin that looks like it's goin to swallow a sod
whole! It seems he only preys on folks like me, paranoid
folks afraid of the dark, noone knows where he came from
or how to get rid of him, but the fact remains that he's
there, and he's waiting! In the name of the Lady herself,
don't go on those stairs! The snake women too... they're
evil, they come from inside him. He's they're father.
When he bleeds he bleeds snakes and bugs, but when he
eats someone, he spits out a lillendi!
"I'm
telling you I've seen it! That's why they love people
walking their barmy steps, so he can eat them! They're
hunting for food for their evil master! Why don't you
believe me? Why are you looking at me like
that?"
- Old Man
McRacken, resident of the Irreparably Insane ward of the
Gatehouse
Copyright 1998 by Jon Winter
and respective authors,
artwork by Jeremiah Golden and Jon Winter
Special thanks to Jeremiah,
Tom and especially Belarius for coming up with the
goods!
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