Lady of Pain

2018-10-04T19:05:02Z

2001:4930:48:53:64FB:9BB0:2605:2313:

[[File:Lady of Pain by maddiel.jpg|250px|thumbnail|Thou shalt not fuck with The Lady of Pain. Being mazed by her will be the least horrid experience you'll get.]]

The '''Lady of Pain''' is one of the primary figures of the [[Planescape]] campaign setting. She is an immensely powerful being who protects the city of [[Planescape#Sigil|Sigil]] from outside forces. Despite being at least as powerful as any known deity, she accepts no followers, and is known to respond to those who try to worship her with extreme violence. While most Cagers don't like to invoke her name lightly, the phrase "Her Serenity" is commonly used to refer to the Lady of Pain.

Nobody knows exactly what she is. There are rumors that she's part of a group called the Ancient Bretheren (or the Elders), who predate the gods and include such beings as [[Jazirian]], [[Asmodeus|Ahriman]] and Mok'slyk, also known as the Serpent. When the latter empowered [[Vecna]] in his bid to take over the Multiverse and setting up shop in Sigil she was unable to drive him off: while she managed to force Vecna into a stalemate, his presence there would have eventually destroyed the city and with it the Multiverse, necessitating the [[party]] to take him down. This puts her around the same power level as Mok'slyk, and while it gives some answers as to what she is and what her goals are, it raises a lot more questions.

==Crunch==

She is left deliberately statless to prevent powergaming players trying to fight her or actually coming up with ways to defeat her in combat, and is automatically assumed to win whatever fight she gets into. Her attacks basically go like this: The Lady of Pain floats toward you. Her shadow falls over you, and you feel the pain of ten thousand knives flaying the flesh from your bones. You die. The only way to defend against the Lady of Pain's attacks is to grab your character sheet before the [[DM]] manages to tear it up.

If she knows what's good for her, she stays the fuck away from [[Bloody Path|15th level 4th edition rogues]] (how can She cast a shadow on herself?), [[Pun-Pun]], and the [[Neutronium golem]].

...we joke about the above, but it is unfortunately common for [[That Guy|certain kinds of DM]] to kill her off with their BBEG to show how strong the campaign villain is ("oh mah gawd, da villeen just keeled da ladee of pain, he's soo stwong"). Any player faced with such a brand of dumbfuckery should seriously consider rebellion or physical violence.

Ignoring that killing the Lady of Pain would wreck the absolute balls out of not just Planescape, but utterly unravel every single aspect of the game system's settings on a fucking submolecular level, anyone who COULD pull off such a hypothetical would be placed fsr beyond the realm of actually having to worry about any threat in existence, let alone the hapless player characters whose sheets got wasted on this drivel. To give you an example, there used to be this god named [[Aoskar]]. He was what would've been the ''perfect'' god for Sigil if ever it were to have one, and she fucking ''ONE-SHOTTED HIM'' with a snap of her fingers!

==Gallery==
{{Promotions}}
<gallery>
Image:Lady.gif|unused art from [[Planescape: Torment]]
Image:Lady of Pain.jpg|An image of the Lady that won't result in Mazing if seen
Image:Lady_of_Pain_(3).jpg
Image:Lady_of_Pain_(4).jpg
Image:The_Blades_of_the_Lady_of_Pain_by_masterfan.jpg
Image:Lady_of_pain.jpg
Image:The_Lady_of_Pain_Chibi_by_OneandPrime.jpg
Image:Lady of Poke.jpg|Lady of Poke
File:Lady_Tattoo.jpg
Image:Lady-007.jpg
Image:Lady_of_Pain_Que.jpg
Image:Lady_of_Pain_by_Fuflon_by_Deusuum.jpg
Image:Animu_Her_Serenity.jpg
Image:Lady_of_Pain_Vecna.jpg|How [[Vecna]] actually lost his hand.
File:LadyOfPainTopless.jpg
Image:Lady_of_Hmm.jpg
Image:Lady_of_Pain_(2).jpg
</gallery>

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Planescape]]

Neogi

2018-10-04T19:03:24Z

2001:4930:48:53:64FB:9BB0:2605:2313:

Born from the ''[[Spelljammer]]'' campaign setting, the race of [[aberration]]s known as the '''neogi''' are the most-loathed race in the cosmos. [[Beholder]]s might be dicks, but they mostly try to exterminate one another rather than anyone else, and get one on his own long enough and he'll turn into a pretty chill guy. [[Mind flayer]]s may eat literal brains, but they'll at least refrain from doing it ''in front of you'', and can be bought off with slaves or other valuable things.

But the neogi have no friends, for very good reason. Looking like an ugly, [[halfling]]-sized mixer of a moray eel and a wolf-spider, the neogi mind ''cannot'' conceive of any relationship between two other forms of sapient life than owner and slave. Even aboard their own ships, there is a looooong human centipede of ownership that ends in slaves. Indeed, this is why they're less dangerous than they could be: it's ''really'' difficult for them to cooperate amongst themselves on any meaningful level without a whole lot of captains getting killed and eaten in brutal deathmatches for overlordship of multiple vessels.

Meanwhile, since they have no planet and probably blew their old one up, they jam around the universe voiping into crystal spheres to grab as many slaves as they can before voiping out. They don't even trade for them, because they ''can't'' conceive of the idea of two equal parties trading goods. The lone exception appears to be the illithids, and even ''they'' don't like hanging with the neogi.

Culturally, like mind flayers, they like palling around with [[umber hulk]]s. Every adult neogi has at least one umber hulk slave, because they ''are'' slaves until they can enslave one of their own. Biologically, they reproduce every bit as horribly (and hilariously) as one would expect from such a disgusting race. Once one of them starts getting a bit senile, they ''fucking poison him'' until he's a bloated lobotomized wreck called a Great Old Master that can do nothing but eat and eat and eat, until he falls over dead and a couple-dozen newborn neogi explode out of him, eating up all his remains and then one another. How bloated? They go from Small sized to ''Huge'' sized.

Comically, this means lone neogi are almost always renegades who don't ''want'' to be turned into literal baby-factories, chased by ships full of their kinsmen out to make them do their duty to their race and make more neogi. Combat-wise, the mostly rely on their umber hulk body guards, though their bite carries a slowing poison and every one in a couple of them dabbles in magic. The Great Old Masters, meanwhile, are slow and dumb, but fire or slashing damage causes newborn neogi to explode out of them and attack their attackers. Their ships are the charmingly-named Deathspider and Mindspider, and are hard to get because everyone hates them and attacks them on sight.

They mostly got ignored once ''Spelljammer'' did, though there was one adventure where they landed on Faerun for a slaving run in 3rd edition. However, [[5e]] eventually tossed them a bone, and they were officially added back into the game with ''Volo's Guide to Monsters'', which statted them out, described their life-cycle (though they now lay their eggs on the Great Old Master rather than just having him suddenly die of pregnancy), and softened them just enough that they can now cooperate with other civilizations as evil and depraved as they are in situations where self-preservation overrides their natural desire to enslave and dominate. This makes them a bit less "slave at all costs!" and more greed-driven space-slave-merchants.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Monsters]]

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Lady of Pain

Neogi