Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Hey y’all!! I am Visaru, I’ve been DMing Dungeons and Dragons for over 15 years and played every edition of the game, but this is my first time DMing a play by post game! :)
This classic Planescape campaign will take players across the planes, based in a strange bustling city in the middle of reality:
Sigil: City of Doors.
We’ll be using the 2024 rules. We’ll use this thread for reference material, recruitment and out of game chatter. Once your character is approved in this threat we can start playing in the IC (In Character) channel (which does not exist at the time of this post.)
About the Campaign:
The campaign will take place in Sigil, the place at the center of the outer planes, and deal with the gods, warring philosophies, and the strange inhabitants of the outer planes. More info about the setting can be found below in “A Basher’s Guide to Sigil.” Or “Factions of The Cage”
We’ll start playing as soon as the first character is approved and other players can join as we go. They can join together in one party or several. Not sure what the player cap will be, I’ll see what my capacity is.
Rating: PG-13.

All character ideas need to be approved by DM. Generally, expect all officially published player options to be accepted. 2014 content is compatible, let me know if you have questions on how to adapt it. We’ll be starting at level one, so build characters who feel like regular people with a special talent, off on your first adventure. You either live in Sigil, or have just arrived here, like Alice through the Looking Glass. In addition to your usual character options select Cager or Clueless:
If you want to play:
Looking forward to rolling some dice!
A Basher's Guide to Sigil
So you’re no regular berk. You’re an adventurer, and you’re looking for the dark on the best city in existence. Well, you asked…
Take it in. You’re standing in the center of the multiverse, a magical spiked metropolis on the inside of a great floating ring. You can find portals to any plane here, from the poison jungles of Carceri to the clockwork wonderland of Mechanus. In Sigil, traveling the planes is as simple as stepping through the right door.
Because it’s so well connected, folks from across the planes come here to trade, communicate, and learn. It’s a meeting ground of Gith sky-pirates, god-touched elves, opportunistic devils, and anything a body can imagine.
It’s all run by the mysterious Lady of Pain. She’s powerful: no god can get in to her city, and no mortal can teleport out or in without her will. That’s why they some call this city, “The Cage.”
She has servants, Dabuses, bizarre beings that speak only in rebuses, who float around the city redesigning and remodeling it according to the unknowable wishes of the Lady of Pain.
Sigil has markets, slums, museums, bureaucracy, law enforcement, and all the functions you might expect in a dense cosmopolitan city. Each major function of the city is run by a different faction, each devoted to a different philosophy on the nature and meaning of the multiverse. Every resident of sigil is considered a member of one faction or another.
Still, the easiest way to get to the outer planes is through the portals that appear randomly all around Sigil. Most portals require a ‘key’ — some kind of specific object, attitude, or gesture that triggers them. Lots of factions control various portals, but new ones appear all the time, and it’s easy to take a wrong turn down an alleyway and suddenly find yourself in the dark woods of the beastlands. Worse, a lot of the portals are only one way…
So watch your step. Don’t mess with the Lady of Pain. Don’t mess with the wrong faction. And don’t walk through the wrong door. This really is the best place in the multiverse to live… or die.
Sources and Further Reading:
Sigil and the Outlands (2023)
A Player’s Guide to the Planes (1994)
The Factions of The Cage
All players belong to one of these following factions in Sigil. Factions provide their members with information, places to stay, healing services (for a price), and representation in the city government. You do NOT have to read the details of all of them. Skim the short summaries of their belief systems and find one that catches your eye. You can always change your faction later (unless you're one of the Harmonium guards, for which the punishment for desertion is death.)
“The gods are frauds”
“That’s right, berk. The god’s aren’t real. Well, sure, they’re real, but they aint’ gods. Least not the way they want you to think they are. They ain’t incarnations of the nature of the universe, of a different ken than us. They’re just regular bloods who’ve gotten powerful enough to inspire worship, and gotten enough worship to generate its own power. It’s a good trick, and if we could just figure out how to do it, we’d become gods too.”
The "defiers" try to spread their belief, encouraging folks to give up worship of the gods and join the Athar in The Shattered Temple, a huge abandoned worship complex.
Requirements: No clerics.
Benefits: Athar are immune to the spells Banishment, Scrying, Bestow Curse, Enthrall, and Geas, if cast using divine magic.
Restrictions: Athar cannot accept magical aid from divine magic (such as Cure Wounds or Bless).
"Life is a Forge"
“All reality stems from the same single source: a kind of transcendent energy that created all things. We are all part of that energy, which is now in the process of a transformation. By living, we reforge ourselves, making this energy stronger and better, and after death we will be reborn as a new kind of being depending on how we lived our life. Our role is to continue working our way up to godhood, and finally, to evolve beyond it, allowing this energy to find its final form."
The "Godsmen" are well liked by all, as they see in everyone the potential for divinity. They are often turned to as mediators and arbitrators of other guild disputes. They run the largest forge in Sigil, The Great Foundry.
Requirements: None
Benefits: Godsmen are well received, and have advantage on persuasion checks in Sigil and the Outer Planes.
Restrictions: Because of a lack of faith in the ultimate divinity of their gods, Godsmen Clerics have disadvantage on saving throws against magic. Godsmen cannot be raised from the dead or resurrected, but they can be reincarnated.
"There is no meaning"
“Everyone else tells you there’s some secret truth to it all, some philosophical key that’ll unlock the powers of the universe. The real truth? They’re all deluded. The universe just is. It doesn’t have a reason. We can’t find meaning or salvation out there in the universe, so we’ve got to look inward, make our own meaning, and look out for one another. ‘Cause I guarantee you, the universe won’t be doing it for us.”
The grim "Bleakers" control The Gatehouse, an ancient fortress repurposed as an asylum for the sick and insane, and they also run soup kitchens across the city.
Requirements: No lawful alignment
Benefits: Bleakers are immune to spells or effects that cause madness, such as Confusion, Otto’s Irresistible Dance, or Tasha’s Hideous Laughter.
Restrictions: Bleakers are subject to fits of deep melancholia. At the start of each in-game day, Bleakers must roll a d20. On a 1, the character is overcome by the futility of existence, and won't do anything, even raise their weapons in self defense, unless philosophically convinced by another that it is worthwhile.
“Entropy is inevitable”
“Don’t mourn the breakdown of the universe! Reality is meant to fall apart, to grow more chaotic and less ordered. We shouldn’t regret this, but celebrate it! Don’t be sad when a building burns down. Rejoice! It has finally reached its natural state. Enjoy erosion, rot, and destruction. Only thing we sinkers disagree on is the proper pace of destruction. Should we help accelerate the decay of everything, or slow it down?”
Long ago, the destructive Doomguard took control over the city’s armory, and they now sell (or gift) weapons to the various factions, keeping the most powerful weapons and siege engines out of the hands of people like the Harmonium.
Requirements: No clerics with the the life domain or order domain subclasses.
Benefits: All members have proficiency in all swords.
Restrictions: Doomguard must roll a saving throw (DC15) if targeted by healing (such as cure wounds) or restoration magic (such as lesser restoration). If they fail, the spell is expended but has no effect.
"We are already dead."
"Some people say we are alive now, and we’re moving to the afterlife. That’s bollocks. This is the afterlife, and everyone in it — ghosts, devils, spirits, gods, angels, and bodies like you — are just in different stages of it. The Godsmen have it all backwards: the goal of existence is to become gods, but to let go of existence and becoming one of the ‘true dead’. Undead are the closest to it. We need to give up on the passions of life, and move on from this afterlife.”
The stoic Dustmen care for the dead in The Mortuary. The corpses are interred on other planes, cremated, buried in vast underground crypts, or raised to work forever as undead laborers.
Requirements: None
Benefits: The ancient Dead Truce means that undead cannot harm Dustmen unless attacked fist.
Restrictions: Dustmen have only a 50% chance of being resurrected.
“Everyone earns their own fate”
“No god or philosophy ever’s gonna give you what you need. You gotta go out and take it yourself. All my wealth, power, my comfort? I earned those with my own sweat, wit, and will. I don’t owe nothin’ to no one. Those who whine and complain about their poor lot in life having nothing to blame but themselves. It’s their own fault for not going out and taking the power they need to protect themselves."
The capitalistic takers run the Hall of Records, where they manage property deeds and legal certificates, and are also in charge of collecting the city’s taxes. Their leader, Duke Rowan Darkwood, is infamous for his ambitions to take over the entire city.
Requirements: Not lawful good
Benefits: 4 additional skill proficiencies.
Restrictions: Takers cannot accept or perform charity. Everything they receive must be earned, and the service must be provided before payment is given.
Laws control everything”
“It’s simple. The city is controlled by laws, but it also exists in a universe that is governed by the greater laws of physics and magic. Rules, laws, and axioms underly everything: magic, divine power, martial prowess, time, movement, alignment, even the power of the gods! If you understand them, you know how the universe works. And that’s real power, berk.”
The Guvners run the city courts, as no one in Sigil knows the law better than them. They don’t make the laws, of course — there’s a council with representatives from each faction, but because they know the law so well they always seem to find loopholes for their faction members.
Requirements: Only Lawful alignment
Benefits: Can cast Comprehend Languages once per day.
Restrictions: Guvners can’t knowingly break a law, unless they can find a legalistic loophole to avoid the penalty.
"Live Free or Die"
“Pike that! I don’t want to have join a faction. I don’t want to be hemmed in by their weird ideas and strict rules. Truth isn’t held in doctrine. Everyone has a different perspective, and they can all be useful, but no one group is completely right. We all deserve to strike out on our own path and find our personal version of the truth. I’m fine on my own, thanks.”
Pure individualists, the ‘Indeps’ don’t join up with any faction. They have no headquarters, leader, representation, rights, or protections when other factions decide to pick them off.
Requirements: None
Benefits: Advantage on all saving throws against enchantment spells.
Restrictions: No representation or legal rights in Sigil.
“Peace through force.”
“Listen, I’m no seer, I don’t know what the powers above want. But I know what we want. Peace and harmony for all. ‘Course, there’s plenty of bashers out there who don’t feel the same, and if someone is standing in the way of peace or harmony, they deserve to taste the pointy end of a sword. Every one of them gone is one step closer to planar peace, right?”
The "Hardheads" are Sigil’s law enforcement. They arrest (or kill) troublemakers, and drag them before the courts, hoping the law of Sigil finds their charges guilty.
Requirements: Only lawful alignment
Benefits: Hardheads can use Charm Person once per day, the DC based on their charisma.
Restrictions: Members cannot disobey orders from higher ranking Harmonium members. Leaving the Harmonium is punishable by death.
“Justice requires punishment”
"I believe in justice. All found guilty must pay for their crimes. To make them pay is my duty. To show mercy toward them would be to forsake my duty. Mercy would cloud my unyielding, unbiased judgement, and that is against the Eight Tenets of Justice."
While the Harmonium arrest rulebreakers on the city streets, the Mercykillers deal with those deal with those already convicted by the courts. They run the prison, and execute the guilty without remorse. They are responsible for hunting down and punishing escaped criminals, and will do anything it takes in their fervor to see the guilty punished.
Requirements: Lawful alignment. No criminals
Benefits: Once a day, Mercykillers can accurately detect whether an answer to a single question is truthful or not.
Restrictions: If Mercykillers commit a crime for any other reason that punishing a known criminal, they must accept full punishment under Sigilian law. Mercykillers can never release a lawbreaker until the proper sentence has been carried out on them.
“The factions have got to go!”
“The factions are our enemies. They control us, turning us into mere instruments to help their leaders gain ever power. They might hide their desire for power in fancy philosophies, but at the core, they are all the same: exploitative hierarchies that exist only to conquer and expand. True truth and true freedom will only be ours when the factions that control Sigil have been overthrown. What comes next? That’s a tougher question.”
Unlike the Indeps, the "Anarchists" don’t just want to to exist outside of the factions. They actively organize to overthrow them and make a better world. Outlawed by the city government, they operate in secret, infiltrating the other factions and looking to destabilize them from the inside. Their faction is organized on anarchist principles, governing itself through a network of autonomous cells.
Requirements: No lawful alignments
Benefits: Anarchists can pose as a member of any other faction. They don’t gain any special abilities of that faction, but can obtain things like access to the faction’s headquarters.
Restrictions: Anarchists cannot take part in the power structure of the planes such as by owning a business, holding public office, or obtaining a noble title. 90% of all treasure gained by Anarchists but be distributed to the revolutionary cause or to the oppressed.
“Reality is manifested by the self”
“You see, everything around you is a projection of the mind. You are the center of the multiverse. Reality is created by your beliefs and expectations. If you believe you are successful and beautiful, you will become attractive and wealthy. If you believe the city is full by selfish monsters, selfish monstrousness is all you experience from others. That’s why every faction is so convinced they are right: their own philosophies warp their experience of the reality. But if you understand that you are the source of reality, you are can better manifest your desires into reality. If your imagination and concentration is up to it, you have the power to reshape the planes themselves.”
The "signers" run the meetings of the city government, presiding over the public speeches, debates, and hearings, that precede the private meetings of the city council, where representatives of each faction make laws, settle feuds, and other legislative matters. This all takes place at their headquarters, the Hall of Speakers, where they work to manifest their desires into reality.
Requirements: No lawful good or lawful neutral alignments
Benefits: Signers have advantage on checks to disbelieve illusions.
Restrictions: Because of their immense egos, signers have difficulty understanding the motives and feelings of others, and have disadvantage on all insight checks.
“Knowledge comes from the senses”
“We are people who long for knowledge. Plenty of bashers think that kind of quest involves burying your head in a book, but they don’t know the dark of it. Real knowledge comes from experience. You could read everything that’s ever been written on the smell of Elysium dew-flowers, but you still wouldn’t understand them or even be sure they were real until you smelled one yourself. Personal experience is the thing that's real, so to understand reality, we’ve got to feel everything."
The "Sensates" provide art, entertainment, and education in Sigil, a welcome relief in the dangerous city. The Civic Festhall, their headquarters, is full of theaters, classrooms, museums, restaurants, and sensoriums, libraries of magical orbs that allow people to record and re-experience unique sensations.
Requirements: None
Benefits: Heightened senses. Sensates have Darkvision and a +1 bonus to perception checks.
Restrictions: Unless faced with obvious deadly peril, Sensates can’t refuse the opportunity to experience new sensations, like tasting new wines, smelling exotic flowers, or petting a strange animal.
“Act on instinct, not thought”
“Don’t think. Just act. That is the goal of the Transcendent Order — to live in harmony with the Cadence of the Planes, to reach a state where every action happens automatically, unthinkingly. Getting there is not easy: it requires intense physical and emotional training, the ability to completely relax one’s body mind and soul, and total presence in your body and the universe. But this is the right path we walk.”
The "Ciphers" run The Great Gymnasium, where they train their bodies, minds and souls through work-outs, mediation, and art-making to achieve a perfect unity of thought and action. They are open minded, neutral, and balance out the more extreme factions, so are often called on as advisors.
Requirements: Neutral Alignment
Benefits: Ciphers gain a +2 bonus to initiative rolls
Restrictions: Ciphers act unhesitatingly, and cannot pause to consider or debate pending actions. This means Cipher characters may not discuss plans with others -- they act as soon as they understand the situation before them.
“It's just chaos”
“I think I think I think I think I think! 15 times! Hey ho, Berk, keep up! What do you say? What do I say? Everything’s chaos! Just like we! Give it all up! Come be ~addle cove~ with us! ‘Cause madness is the new wisdom! Blood is the new dark. Get it? Help! You want it? Freedom? We got it! That’s right baby. Dance the night away! Free Associate! Apples! Cast iron! Live a little! Die a little! Throw philosophy in the trash! Throw desire in the trash! Paint the world pink! Let’s ride!”
The "Chaosmen" live in The Hive, the city slums. They gather together to do whatever it is they feel like — graffiti, arson, impromptu parades — anything that feels like a good idea at the time.
Requirements: Only Chaotic alignment.
Benefits: Once per week, Chaosmen can cause all beings within 30 ft. to lose the ability to understand spoken language for one minute.
Restrictions: The Chaosmen are committed to the power of Chaos. As such, they can never found businesses, build strongholds, raise armies, or undertake any other action that requires long-term organization and discipline. Indeed, they just barely hold their faction together as it is.
Outsiders
"Where am I?"
“The Clueless” come from the Prime Material — they are newcomers to sigil who don’t understand or belong to any factions.
Requirements: Never been to Sigil before.
Benefits: None
Restrictions: They are sure to be picked on by the locals.
Hello! This looks amazing, and I’d be interested in joining!
Should we reroll ones for ability scores?
Hiya! You can call me Link. Here’s a bit about me:
Roomba Knight, Architect of the Cataclysm, Kitsumiho! Dubbed The Fluffy Bowman by Golden. He/They
Theatre Kid, Ravenclaw, bookworm, DM, Lego fanatic, flautist, mythology nerd, pedantic about spelling. I also love foxes, cats, otters, and red pandas!
I love Korean Mythology. If you want to ask me about something, send me a PM!
Aig amannan bidh mi air mo ghlacadh ro mhòr an-dràsta...Sweet! I'm happy to let you pick any standard ability score generation method you like, as long as it doesn't give really inflated scores. I usually just do 4d6, drop the lowest, I'm not familiar with the rerolling one method, tell me more
Ooh, been wanting to bang around the Cage for a while now! Definitely no Clueless prime here - been in love with the setting since at least Planescape: Torment. Ad looks great - definitely want in! I'll try and come up with a concept today.