The Society of Sensation

According to these folks, the multiverse is known by the senses - the only proofs of existence. Without experience, without sensation, a thing isn't. If a sod can't taste the soup, then it ain't soup. The only way to know anything for sure is to use the senses. Look, it ain't that hard to understand. Which is real, a description of a rose or the rose itself? Only a barmy'd choose the description, which ain't real. It's got no smell, no thorns, no color. Picking a rose, that's real, and the way a body knows is by experiencing it. The senses are the only way to know the universe. So some berk'll ask, "What's this got to do with universal Truth, the meaning of the multiverse?" Well, the chant is no one's going to know the big dark until they've experienced everything -- all the flavors, colors, scents, and textures of all the worlds. Only when a body's experienced the whole universe does the great dark of it all finally get revealed. It may seem like an impossible task, but there just might be a way to bob the problem -- cheat the multiverse, as it were. It just might be that the multiverse doesn't exist beyond what a body can sense. The answer to what's over the next hill just might be "nothing." Given that, the multiverse has limits, and a body can try to experience it all. A being's got to savor the intensity, explore the complexity. Don't just guzzle the wine -- find all the flavors within it. Before a sod's all done, he'll learn the differences between Arborean and Ysgardian wine, know them by vintage, and even by the hand of the vintner. Only then do the secrets of the multiverse start to make themselves clear.

The Sensates -- members of the Society of Sensation, in case that wasn't obvious -- are strongest on Arborea, a plane of great beauty in all things. In Sigil, their headquarters is naturally the resplendent Civic Festhall.

The Sensates and the Signers, both egocentric factions, do share points of agreement concerning their philosophies, and they often cooperate in their activities. Sensates are cordial to Guvners and Indeps, intrigued by their descriptions of things far away. However, they're opposed to the philosophies of the Doomguard, which sees worlds only as decaying objects.

Note: The Society of Sensation originally appeared in the Planescape AD&D campaign setting from TSR. Additional information can be found in In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil. Their use here is for the purposes of providing context for the campaign only.