The Serene Lady of Pain, ruler of Sigil by Amy K. Brown.

The Lady of Pain is a fictional entity, the protector of the city of Sigil in the Dungeons & Dragons Planescape campaign setting. She is also known as Her Serenity, for the permanently vacant expression on her face, Her Dread Majesty, The Bladed Queen, or simply The Lady. She is only a lady insofar as she is characterized as female in her countenance. The Lady may as well be male or sexless, or such a type that traditional gender classification is impossible. Image File history File links RSLadyofPain. ... Image File history File links RSLadyofPain. ... A view of the Spire and Sigil from Outlands. ... For other uses, see Dungeons & Dragons (disambiguation). ... Planescape - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... A campaign setting is a fictional fantasy world which serves as a setting for a role-playing game or wargame. ... The hand mirror and comb of the Roman Goddess Venus is often used to represent the female sex. ... The shield and spear of the Roman God Mars are often used to represent the male sex In heterogamous species, male is the sex of an organism, or of a part of an organism, which typically produces smaller, mobile gametes (spermatozoa) that are able to fertilise female gametes (ova). ... This article is about human asexuality; asexual reproduction is a separate topic. ...

PS:T bestiary entry

The Lady is a mystery. She's widely regarded to be the de facto ruler of Sigil, its protector and its victim. She is said to guard the doors of the Cage against the myriad schemes of the gods, to be the ultimate expression of balance in the multiverse, to be the prisoner of the City of Doors. There are thousands of stories about her - one even tells that she's actually six giant squirrels with a headdress, robe, and ring of levitation and illusions - but none of them can be answered. She is a true enigma, a puzzle with no solution. Planescape: Torment is a computer role-playing game (CRPG) that takes place in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Planescape setting. ...

If someone displeases her - by upsetting the balance of the city or worshipping her - the Lady may punish the offender. Her punishment ranges from the Mazes - a twisting, turning hell with a cleverly disguised exit - to the casting of her shadow across the transgressor, covering him with slashes and gouges from her sharp-edged shadow, leaving behind a pile of gore and viscera. Neither option is particularly attractive.

Description and history

The Lady of Pain (Planescape: Torment)

A very powerful being, many of the hive dwellers consider her to be a deity, but no one really worships her for fear of her wrath. No one knows how she came to be or what her true purpose is, but she helps in maintaining the balance within Sigil and throws defilers and denizens who anger her into one of her mazes. Often, she will only interfere when the very balance and stability of Sigil is threatened. While the Clueless may dismiss the Hivers' fear of her as superstition, the informed know that she is quite real and extremely deadly. Image File history File links TheLadyOfPain. ... Image File history File links TheLadyOfPain. ... Planescape: Torment is a computer role-playing game (CRPG) that takes place in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Planescape setting. ...

The Lady is sometimes seen as a floating, robed woman with a mantle of blades around her expressionless face. She does not concern herself with the laws of the city, and typically interferes only when something threatens the stability of Sigil itself. A blade is the flat part of a bladed tool or weapon that (usually) has a cutting edge and/or pointed end typically made of a metal, such as steel used to cut, stab, slice, throw, thrust, or strike. ...

The Lady is an entity of inscrutable motives, and often those who cross her path, even if accidentally, are flayed to death or teleported to one of her Mazes (an almost inescapable pocket universe). Rumor has it that even greater deities have fallen before the Lady. The Shattered Temple in Sigil, was a major temple of Aoskar, the god of portals, who wanted to get the city under his control. Once his meddling annoyed the Lady enough, she killed him with but a thought, shattering the grand temple and throwing his priests into the Mazes of her making. The ruined temple eventually became the headquarters of the Athar. The vast majority of Sigil's denizens dread her apparitions, and some even avoid mentioning her name aloud for fear of drawing her attention. Michelangelos Last Judgment - Saint Bartholomew holding the knife of his martyrdom and his flayed skin Flaying is the removal of skin from the body. ... In satellite communication, Teleport refers to a Earth Station Hub, or Uplink Facility. ... Public hedge maze in the English Garden at Schönbusch Park, Aschaffenburg, Germany A small maze. ... Pocket universes are a type of very small parallel universe sometimes found in science fiction and fantasy. ... Look up deity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Aoskar is a fictional entity, a greater deity in the Dungeons & Dragons Planescape campaign setting. ... -1...

The Lady has the power to control each and every portal in Sigil, opening and barring them as she sees fit. Her apparent goal is to keep Sigil a safe haven for all planar travellers. The dabus, her servants, maintain the city, forever fixing and patching its streets. For all her power, she apparently refuses to be worshipped as a goddess, and anyone brave (or careless) enough to worship her has met a grisly demise in the shadow of her blades. In the Dungeons & Dragons Planescape campaign setting, Dabus (singular and plural are the same) are the personal entourage of the Lady of Pain. ... Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. ...

The closest the Lady of Pain ever came to being overthrown was by Vecna, as one of the final steps in his plan to reshape the multiverse and make himself supreme (recounted in Die Vecna Die!). In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Vecna was a powerful wizard who became a lich, and eventually achieved godhood. ... Parallel universe (fiction) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Die Vecna Die! is an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D 2nd edition) module released in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. ...

Theories

Lady of Pain - original on the cover of Dragon Magazine issue #339 (January 2006 edition).

A theory that appears late in the computer game Planescape: Torment is that the Lady is a prisoner and that Sigil is her cage. This theory is plausible in that its coiner, Ravel Puzzlewell, who would refer to herself as "the solver of puzzles not needing solving", had a level of understanding about the mechanics of the planes incomprehensible by men. Unfortunately (or perhaps for that very reason), she was also insane; whether her insanity set in before or after being "mazed" by the Lady is unknown. Image File history File linksMetadata LadyofPain. ... Image File history File linksMetadata LadyofPain. ... Dragon, first issue 1976, is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... Planescape: Torment is a computer role-playing game (CRPG) that takes place in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Planescape setting. ... In the standard cosmology of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game, the planes of existence are alternate planes or alternate dimensions. ... Inmates at Bedlam Asylum, as portrayed by William Hogarth Insanity, or madness, is a semi-permanent, severe mental disorder typically stemming from a form of mental illness. ...

Additionally, the novel Pages of Pain (see below) suggests that she may be the daughter of Poseidon from the Greek Pantheon of Arborea. However this is not made clear and even suggested that the memories of her early life released from an amphora may have been faked by the god himself in order to potentially sway the Protector of the Cage towards his way of thinking. Neptune reigns in the city centre, Bristol, formerly the largest port in England outside London. ... Greek mythology consists in part of a large collection of narratives that explain the origins of the world and detail the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines. ... In Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy role-playing game, Arborea or more fully, the Olympian Glades of Arborea, is a chaotic good-aligned plane of existence. ... Amphoræ on display in Bodrum Castle, Turkey An amphora is a type of ceramic vase with two handles, used for the transportation and storage of perishable goods and more rarely as containers for the ashes of the dead or as prize awards. ...

It must be noted that in the Planescape fandom the question of exactly who or what the Lady of Pain is and what motivates her is considered to be unanswerable, and is purposefully a mystery to add to the distinctive style of the campaign setting. It is left to each DM to decide which theory, if any, is true. In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the Dungeon Master (abbreviated as DM) is a selected player who describes the game to the other players. ...

Influences and similarities

• The main inspiration for the character of the Lady of Pain is the poem Dolores (Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs), by English Decadent poet Algernon Charles Swinburne.

• The Shrike, the robotic monster and anti-hero of the Hyperion series of science fiction books by Dan Simmons, also bears a minor resemblance to the Lady. Both creatures have metal blades as prominent features of their designs, both have inscrutable motives, and an often repeated title of The Shrike is The Lord of Pain.

• It has also been rumored in jest that The Lady of Pain's name was patterened after TSR's gamer-hating president, Lorraine Williams.

Dolores (Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs) is a poem by A. C. Swinburne first published in his 1866 Poems and Ballads. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq... Decadence generally refers to the supposed decline of a society because of moral weakness. ... A poet is some one who writes poetry. ... Algernon Charles Swinburne (April 5, 1837 _ April 10, 1909) was a Victorian era English poet. ... In literature and film, an anti-hero is a central or supporting character that has some of the personality flaws and ultimate fortune traditionally assigned to villains but nonetheless also have enough heroic qualities or intentions to gain the sympathy of readers or viewers. ... Hyperion The Hyperion Cantos form a tetralogy of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Dan Simmons portrayed on the cover of Locus magazine. ...

External links

• Her Serenity, The Lady of Pain
• The power that resides in Sigil, the City of Doors
• Pages of Pain@Everything2.com