D&D Lore - Lady of Pain and the Language Primeval?

[lbuttitta]

Just as the title says: who is the Lady of Pain, what is the Language Primeval, and what is the trivia and lore behind them?

[Gildedragon]

The Lady of Pain is the supreme and absolute mistress of the interplanar cosmopolis of Sigil, The City of Doors.
She seems incapable of going out of the city, and gods are incapable of going into it.
One of her signature abilities is using inescapable Mazes to punish those who displease her.
She earns her name from the fact that she is covered in knives.
Though immensely powerful, eternal, and all knowing within her city, she is most absolutely not a god. And don't even think of suggesting she is, otherwise... Well the words "spontaneous chunky salsa" come to mind

[Eldan]

The Lady:

Out of game: Out of game, she is a somewhat clunky explanation for an ingame fact. Sigil is a metropolis in the middle of the planes with gates that connect everywhere. Yes, everywhere. Even other game worlds. Even worlds that aren't D&D. So why isn't everyone constantly fighting over it?
Because there's an immensely powerful being overseeing it's neutrality.
She's not there to be fought by the players or anything. She's a pure background plot device.

What she looks like: an enormous, robed woman floating in the air, her face surrounded by a halo of metal blades.

What she does: Not much, actually, day to day. There's a few simple rules she enforces:
1) No gods. (This likely extends to similarly powerful beings, i.e. archfiends, primevals, archomentals, etc.). They can't enter the city, ever.
2) No open warfare. Skirmishes, yes,
3) No worship of the Lady. She may not be worshipped as a god, on pain of death.
4) Though not entirely certain, it seems she kills off members of any groups that get too powerful and might unbalance the city. If so, she does it subtly.

How she does it:
She expresses her displeasure in three ways: gods and similar simply can't enter the city. She controls all portals into and out of the city, which are the only way to get in. If she doesn't want you there, you won't find a portal.
Mazes. As a "mild" sign of displeasure, you may be thrown into your personal gigantic, extraplanar maze. These have exits, theoretically, but only a handful of people ever got out.
Death. Her shadow, if it falls on anything alive (or otherwise animate), will slice that thing apart like giant, rapidly moving knives, removing it to a bloody smear.

How she acts: Her other official title is Her Serenity. She never speaks, though occasionally her servants proclaim decrees. (Well, twice so far in a few thousand years of city history). Her face doesn't seem to display emotion at all, it's been called mask-like. She occasionally seems angry and destructive, but even that she does slowly and deliberately.

Her greatest deed: once, a god seduced one of her followers away from her, maybe even tried to take over the city. His temple is now a giant crater and said god is a corpse floating on the astral plane, pierced by colossal blades.

Most importantly, she is mysterious. The game never tells us what she is, what she wants, how she does it. What are the limits of her powers? No one knows. Can she kill gods again? No one knows. If she is worshipped secretly, would she know? Know one knows (but few would risk it). Do her powers extend outside the city? Probably not but again, no one knows.

[thorr-kan]

Source for Language Primeval? That's a new one for me.

[Waker]

She is a group of six giant squirrels—possessed of a headdress, a robe, and a ring of levitation.
But if you really want to get educated on all things planar, you should try to perform a summoning of afrokuma. Planar knowledge is in his portfolio.

[Eldan]

Heresy! She's three giant squirrels.

[Psyren]

The only "language primeval" I can think of would be the Words of Creation, i.e. truespeak.

[Waker]

Heresy! She's three giant squirrels.

It can't be heresy. We're not supposed to worship her, cause if we did she'd banish us to a Maze or shadowflay us.

[denthor]

In Norse mythology the lady of pain was a minor goddess.

In the D&D 2nd edition she was written up as if you attacked her you would relive the worst pain you ever experienced.

If you got hit with a 50 point fireball. You took that damage again.

[Florian]

Just as the title says: who is the Lady of Pain, what is the Language Primeval, and what is the trivia and lore behind them?

No lore on the Language.

[Gildedragon]

OP: By the language primeval dya mean the Pact Primeval or Words of Creation or Dark Speech?

[hamishspence]

In Norse mythology the lady of pain was a minor goddess.

D&D "real mythology-derived minor goddess" version still exists - Loviatar, from the Forgotten Realms. Finnish, rather than Norse.

The Planescape being, I think, is supposed to be a shout-out to Algernon Swinburne's "Dolores".

[BWR]

In the D&D 2nd edition she was written up as if you attacked her you would relive the worst pain you ever experienced.

If you got hit with a 50 point fireball. You took that damage again.

Source, please. I'll admit it's been a while since I read my (complete) PS collection but this does not ring a bell. All the other stuff about mazes and flayings and whatnot does.
And, yeah LoP was sorta based on Swinbourne's poem and has nothing to do with Loviatar, who is Finnish, not Norse.

[denthor]

Source, please. I'll admit it's been a while since I read my (complete) PS collection but this does not ring a bell. All the other stuff about mazes and flayings and whatnot does.
And, yeah LoP was sorta based on Swinbourne's poem and has nothing to do with Loviatar, who is Finnish, not Norse.

Deities and demigods cover is purple or blue with a golden man coming out of a rod choking a snake coming out of a rod.

If I remember I will be able to find the book Friday

[Zephonim]

The only living being to ever beat the Lady of Pain was a corpse. Vecna entered the city of doors and within became a god. This resulted in Vecna getting booted out of Sigil and the Lady of Pain herself rewriting the multiverse to the point that 2e became 3e. All according to Vecna's design wizards became gods

[Zephonim]

In Norse mythology the lady of pain was a minor goddess.

In the D&D 2nd edition she was written up as if you attacked her you would relive the worst pain you ever experienced.

If you got hit with a 50 point fireball. You took that damage again.

Afaik she usually turns you into chunky salsa or sends you into a maze to suffer eternally. Also she has no stats. Never been statted

[ATHATH]

The only living being to ever beat the Lady of Pain was a corpse. Vecna entered the city of doors and within became a god. This resulted in Vecna getting booted out of Sigil and the Lady of Pain herself rewriting the multiverse to the point that 2e became 3e. All according to Vecna's design wizards became gods

Shhhhhhh, we don't talk about that module. You know that feeling that you get when a movie about a certain franchise !@#$s up everything about the setting, characters, tone, etc. massively? Die, Vecna, Die! is that feeling in module form, made 3 times as bad because it messes up 3 settings at once. The writers of the module apparently didn't consult the creators of 2 of those settings to ensure that their stuff would mesh well with the settings that they were using.

Take what I say with a grain of salt, of course, since I've never actually played Die, Vecna, Die!, and most of my knowledge of it has been osmosed from forums and other similar sources.

[BWR]

Deities and demigods cover is purple or blue with a golden man coming out of a rod choking a snake coming out of a rod.

If I remember I will be able to find the book Friday

You're still thinking of Loviatar, who is not LoP (and she is listed under the Finnish pantheon).

Shhhhhhh, we don't talk about that module. You know that feeling that you get when a movie about a certain franchise !@#$s up everything about the setting, characters, tone, etc. massively? Die, Vecna, Die! is that feeling in module form, made 3 times as bad because it messes up 3 settings at once. The writers of the module apparently didn't consult the creators of 2 of those settings to ensure that their stuff would mesh well with the settings that they were using.

Take what I say with a grain of salt, of course, since I've never actually played Die, Vecna, Die!, and most of my knowledge of it has been osmosed from forums and other similar sources.

DVD is an abomination which blatantly ignored several hard rules and canon for various settings just because. To add insulting our intelligence to the injury done to Ravenloft and PS, it also has Vecna's Other Body Parts as minor artifacts because why not.

[Psyren]

The only living being to ever beat the Lady of Pain was a corpse. Vecna entered the city of doors and within became a god. This resulted in Vecna getting booted out of Sigil and the Lady of Pain herself rewriting the multiverse to the point that 2e became 3e. All according to Vecna's design wizards became gods

I always heard that players hated DVD but I didn't know why. That's hilarious!

[Mechalich]

The Lady of Pain is, additionally, a subject of and character in the novel Pages of Pain by Troy Denning which is...carefully vague...about a great deal of her features to the point of indicating that the Lady herself does not know anything about her origins, the nature of her capabilities, or even how and why she controls the dabus. It also positions her as the literal source of pain (as in the sensation) throughout the multiverse through invisible pods she attaches to beings traveling through Sigil that subsequently spread. In this capacity - which she considers her essential purpose - she is postulated as an essential feature of reality because the elimination of pain from existence would be terrible (you mileage with Troy Denning's personal moral philosophy may vary, a lot). It is also noted that the Lady perpetually walks through Sigil but is only visible when she steps off the cobbles and into the air, and that she has the power to unleash incredible amounts of destruction by apparently just tearing at reality but it's not entirely limitless - the Amnesian Hero's god-forged armor resists her assault briefly.

It's the same as all of Denning's other novels (take characters, torment liberally, observe outcome), but the setting and characters fit his distinctive shtick best.

[Florian]

I always heard that players hated DVD but I didn't know why. That's hilarious!

I played DVD! and I didn't get that feeling, quite the opposite. Same with the Bloodwar campaign and Faction Wars. I don´t know if people misremember Planescape, too much hearsay around or glorifying the old TSR times, but without that kind of campaign world shaking event, the setting would be nearly unplayable and staid.

@Mechalich:

Oh, that book....

[ngilop]

I agree with Florian here.

It was what the game needed to switch from 2nd to 3rd editions. a complete and utter overhaul.

For me, the lore on the settings did not get as wrecked from the 2nd to 3rd shift as they did from the 3rd to 4th edition shift ( like really wtf happened and Why?)

and I really have no idea what is going on between 4th and 5th cept its all about the sword coast now.... why? I HATE the sword coast every fregging square inch has been detailed.. but that is just me griping.. sorry.

[Florian]

It was what the game needed to switch from 2nd to 3rd editions. a complete and utter overhaul.

For me, the lore on the settings did not get as wrecked from the 2nd to 3rd shift as they did from the 3rd to 4th edition shift ( like really wtf happened and Why?)

Hm... how to phrase that?

Beginning with Planescape, the lore and how it got used were already in conflict. I think most of the authors didn't actually understand what they were doing, same as with the later BoVD and BoED.

Things like Dark Speech, the Language Primeval or the Lady of Pain didn't really fit as they´re very close to bog standard christian mythology, but don´t work with objective morality and how the power of believe should affect the Great Wheel. Let´s add the over-reliance on deities for everything and it gets worse.

In that, DVD! was one of the few modules to actually understand and pick up the theme of "change".

As for your personal gripe, look at how things changed and what directions they took. It´s always getting nearer a Heaven <> Hell dichotomy, which can´t explain why ascension of Asmodeus is a thing at all.

[lbuttitta]

Source for Language Primeval? That's a new one for me.

I think it was mentioned in the 2E adventure "Die, Vecna, Die!". I'm not sure of any other sources for it, but I know that the name, at least, is mentioned there.

[Eldan]

Ah. The Thing about Die, Vecna, Die... well, one of the things... is that it fits quite poorly into the established lore of anything else written in D&D.

Anyway, some googling brought up a thread on Planeswalker:

Here's how the Serpent is described in The Book of Eldritch Might II:

"The power of eldritch might stirs in the heart of the multiverse with an intelligence and a soul all its own. The most powerful arcanists know this and grow familiar with magic’s own mind and spirit. Some call it the Serpent, and others call it the Godmind or the Soulspark.Whatever they term it, they know it exists—even if they never speak that knowledge aloud." - Monte Cook

Here's The Epic Level Handbook:

"You’ve heard about spells that transcend the commonly understood arts, scribed in the margins of ancient tomes and whispered, among the acolytes of mageguilds. In various times and places, epic spells have been personified as “the Serpent,” codified as True Dweomers, and encoded as part of an ancient lore called the Language Primeval. Whether epic spells really are straight from the Serpent’s maddening whispers or are revealed to you over countless curious volumes of hidden lore, you are ready to grasp the ultimate level of mortal magic." - Bruce Cordell (probably)

So, apparently, it's a way to understand epic magic.

[thorr-kan]

I think it was mentioned in the 2E adventure "Die, Vecna, Die!". I'm not sure of any other sources for it, but I know that the name, at least, is mentioned there.

Reference to the Language Primeval seemed familiar. After some digging, I found the reference I was remembering!

The 2ED accessory College of Wizardry talks about the Language Primeval, called Aleph, in Chapter 5, p43. This accessory details the wizard's guild, the Arcane Order, which is later mentions in Complete Mage in the 3ED prestige class, Mage of the Arcane Order.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I saw this thread, did some googling because I was curious about why Die, Vecna, Die! was so bad, and found these tidbits about the Language Primeval:

• The Lady of Pain is very powerful as she knows and can speak the Language Primeval (i.e. the same language as the Last Word from "Dead Gods")
• She's confirmed as being one of the "Ancient Brethren". (Yes, this is the first I recall hearing about them as well.) From how I view it, the AB are the underlying forces of the multiverse; things like Magic, Death, etc. In other words, the Lady is the god/force/philosophy who *IS* Pain, as opposed to a god *OF* Pain
• The Language Primeval was introduced in College of Magic, by Bruce Cordell. As I understand it, it's somewhat different from the True Words in Dead Gods, though I can understand Bruce Cordell trying to connect the two.

[khadgar567]

I saw this thread, did some googling because I was curious about why Die, Vecna, Die! was so bad, and found these tidbits about the Language Primeval:

• The Lady of Pain is very powerful as she knows and can speak the Language Primeval (i.e. the same language as the Last Word from "Dead Gods")
• She's confirmed as being one of the "Ancient Brethren". (Yes, this is the first I recall hearing about them as well.) From how I view it, the AB are the underlying forces of the multiverse; things like Magic, Death, etc. In other words, the Lady is the god/force/philosophy who *IS* Pain, as opposed to a god *OF* Pain
• The Language Primeval was introduced in College of Magic, by Bruce Cordell. As I understand it, it's somewhat different from the True Words in Dead Gods, though I can understand Bruce Cordell trying to connect the two.

grod would you explain the third one in longer format like seperate post with ciations like writing essay for homework cuz i am intruged about it?

[Psyren]

This game has way too many One True Languages.

[Florian]

grod would you explain the third one in longer format like seperate post with ciations like writing essay for homework cuz i am intruged about it?

There´s nothing much to write, as with a lot of things, this is an unfinished stub. It´s kind of a "creation myth" apparently based on some being having said the words that brought the multiverse into being and the echo is still around a bit. The whole thing, as well as the "brethren" seems a bit like Gaiman´s "Endless" (Sandman).