Difference between revisions of "The Mazes"

Latest revision as of 17:09, 14 July 2026

The Mazes are the grandest of all Sigil's punishments, and the Lady of Pain saves them for the worst threats to her power. They're a part and yet not a part of the city, and no sane basher wants to go there. The Mazes are the Lady's special birdcages for the would-be power mongers of Sigil.

The Mazes are just that: mazes. There's a difference between them and some of the more confused sections of the Cage, of course, or they'd not be much of a punishment. For starters, they aren't exactly part of Sigil. When the Lady creates a new part of the Mazes, a small piece of the city - an alley or a courtyard, for example - copies itself and becomes a tiny little demiplane. A portal of her making then carries the copy into the heart of the Deep Ethereal. There, it grows into an endless twisting maze that's got no beginning or end. It just doubles back forever on itself. (Actually, the Guvners insist that the Mazes are still part of Sigil, even though they're in the Ethereal, so even their location is a mind-maze.)

A sod sentenced to the Mazes never knows it until it's too late. Sometimes they form around him just as he's passing through some particularly deserted part of the city; he turns a corner and the next intersection's not the way he remembers it, and by that time it's too late. Those that figure the Lady's after them - the ambitious and the cunning - try clever ways to avoid her traps. Some of them never leave their palaces so they never enter a blind alley, and others only travel with groups so they're never caught alone, but it never works. A basher walks down an empty hall in his house, only to discover a maze of rooms that didn't exist before. And sooner or later a berk turns his back to his friends, and when he looks back they're all gone. The Mazes'll always get a sod, no matter how careful he is.

Just spitting her rivals into the Deep Ethereal's not enough for the Lady of Pain, either. Each little chunk of the Mazes that's kicked out is sealed one-way from planar travel - things can get in with a spell, but things can't get back out. For instance, food and water always appear so the prisoner won't starve. But worst of all, those in the Mazes know there's a way out, as the Lady of Pain always leaves a single portal back to Sigil hidden somewhere. Maybe it's so the dabus can check on things if needed, and maybe it's just to torture the sod who's trapped there.

'Course, since that portal's there, it's not impossible to escape the Mazes - hard, yes, but not impossible. Maybe a berk gets lucky and finds the portal. Maybe his friends have got the jink to mount a rescue. After all, they only have to find where the portal opens in Sigil or else track down the demiplane in the Deep Ethereal. How hard can that be?

Note: The Mazes originally appeared in this form in the Planescape AD&D campaign setting from TSR. Its use here is for the purposes of providing context for the campaign only.