The Sign of One
Source: The Factol's Manifesto p.120
Good afternoon, children. I'm Factol Darius.
Your teachers tell me you've been enjoying your visit to our beautiful Hall of Speakers today. It's pretty quiet, for once, since the Council's not in session today. The room you're in right now is called the Speaker's Podium, named for that big wooden lectern up there. This is where we make Sigil's laws.
"Now, l have only a few minutes to spend with you. Do any of you have questions about your visit?"
"Is that big statue out front supposed to be you?"
"Yes, in a way, it is me, just like it's every other member of the Sign of One. That sculpture, called 'The Power of the One,' represents our faction. As you approached the Hall you passed right by it, a woman holding an entire world on her back. Remember how it didn't even look heavy for her? Her whole body looked powerful enough to carry that world across the multiverse, and her face wore a confident smile, as though she were imagining exactly where she wanted to put that world. She was planning it all out in her head. That’s what we do in the Sign of One. We can think about doing something, no matter how impossible it seems, and we make it happen through sheer concentration."
"How come you can do that?"
"Because I'm the center of the multiverse. Therefore, I can control everything in it."
"Can I do that too?"
"Course you can. Everybody can, though we Signers do it best of all. Try this when you get back to your case tonight. Pick some task, anything that involves manual deftness, like threading a needle. Sit down, close your eyes, and imagine yourself trying to thread that needle. Imagine that you just can't do it The thread won't go through the needle's eye. Then, open your eyes and actually try to do the task. Try threading that needle a half dozen times. What do you think'll happen?"
"I can't do it?"
"Exactly, Then, try something else. Close your eyes and imagine actually threading that needle. Your fingers hold steady, and you can picture yourself threading it on the first try. Then open your eyes and really try to do it. Try it another six times. What happens?"
"Bet it works, now."
"That's right, it works. You'll naturally succeed more often this time than in your earlier attempts. See, the mind is a powerful tool. The results it envisions frequently come to pass. I know some berks pass this off as the effect of practice. They say that by rehearsing mental images you train your body. But that doesn't explain why imagining the return of a lost item usually causes it to reappear. Has that happened to you?"
"I can tell you why it works like this. The mind creates the multiverse - maybe just a small chunk of it, maybe a whole plane, or perhaps the entire Great Ring. You think about it enough, it'll come to pass. It all depends on the power of the mind doing the envisioning."
"Here's a challenge for all of you. Grasp that slice of the multiverse which is your life and take control of it. Imagine the happy ending, the triumph. It could be yours, if you've got the guts. Don't cling to failure. Stop whining, stop blaming, stop worrying. Imagine yourself radiant. You could be. And when you've grown up, and you have what you imagined, think about whether you want more. Would you like to guide the destiny of a city - an empire? If that appeals to you. I would offer you the Sign of One. We have the entire multiverse at our fingertips."
The Godsmen believe the multiverse molds us. These signers, they think they mold the multiverse!
The Times of the Sign
The Sign of One's an old faction, dating back many centuries. Its members subscribe to a story about the first Signer. Rilith, whose metaphysical adventures gave birth to the organization and its philosophy.
Rilith possessed an avid fascination with spiders. She had a lot of jink, see, so she could indulge her eccentricities. She collected arachnids from around the Great Ring and from a smattering of prime-material locations. As she preferred her eight-legged pets to arrive for her collection alive, Rilith nearly ended her participation in the hobby when an exotic specimen bit her arm. Its venom produced the typical blue mottling on the skin of the afflicted limb, but Rilith closed her eyes and refused to watch it spread. "Healthy arm, easy breathing, dear vision," she whispered, over and over. Half an hour later, it was true.
She should've died - no other collector had survived the bite of an orange-speckled recluse. Surprised herself that she was still living, Rilith tried a few more thought experiments. First, she imagined she’d obtained an arachnid species discovered by no one else; the twin-tailed blue pincer joined her collection within the week. She pictured her collection winning critical acclaim; Udell Dexlin, Sigil's expert on spiders, knocked at her door the next day. Many more distinguished individuals followed in his footsteps.
Rilith founded a collectors' society aimed at the amateur. She taught her techniques to its admiring membership, including the idiosyncratic habit of imagining desired results. The arachnophiles soon saw the broader application of the latter tactic. They expanded the society's activities beyond its initial focus on spiders to explore the ramifications of positive and negative thinking. Their move into the cerebral realm drew the ire of the Transcendent Order, though. The Ciphers considered the concept that thought controls the multiverse a direct affront to their own philosophy that calls action without thought the purest form of existence. They did everything they could to destroy Rilith's society, but their efforts had the reverse effect. More Cagers heard about the group and joined!
Eventually, the members of the Transcendent Order decided to stop wasting their time and energy. What did it matter that the misguided were many, and the enlightened few? So long as each Cipher pursued the goal of harmonizing body and mind, the rest of Sigil could go to the Mazes. The Ciphers ceased their harassment, and the Signers continued moving in the direction that shaped their early history. In time, they would come to regard themselves the chosen ones of the multiverse - but that's much later.
They soon embarked on a crusade to teach the entire Cage the benefits of positive thinking and the hazards of negative imagery. 'Course, the Bleak Cabal took instant and hostile exception to this goal. The Signers' claim that they controlled the multiverse trampled on the Madmen's assertion that the cosmos made no sense. Tensions rose as neither side backed down. The Signers announced at the Speaker's Podium that they'd assembled teams to envision round the clock the death of Bleaker Factol Nobey. When his attendants found the high-up unbreathing in his bed the next day, the Cabal's hatred for the Sign of One crystallized into a permanent bias. (No cause of death was ever found: No signs of sickness, violence, or evil magic attended the factol's corpse. - Ed) To this day, Bleakers seek new ways to make Signers swallow dirt.
With Nobey's demise, the Sign of One began pursuing a new pastime. The faction started making public proclamation of its designs for the future, followed by much fanfare when these visions came to pass. Tiling is, the Signers' methods in these later successes weren't always exactly scrupulous. At times, they secretly dispatched assassins, healers, or mediators to aid the imagining they practiced at their headquarters.
Individual members began to adopt their faction's habit, registering personal prophecies with a factor, then bringing their triumphs to the notice of their peers. Signers possessing a long history of shaping the multiverse to their liking grew in influence and prestige within the faction. Success in molding events through mind power became more important than the wish for happiness that supposedly prompted such attempts in the first place. Signers lost some of their compassion and became preoccupied with status. "We are the elect," the factol declared. "We admit into our ranks only those cutters who can sculpt reality." (Taken from The Writings of Gaelan, factol at the time of the Signers' first major philosophical shift. - Ed.)
Unlike some factions (namely, the Anarchists), recruiting converts to their philosophy and members for their ranks remains a subsidiary goal for the Sign of One. Instead, their primary desire is to increase the respect and awe in which their neighbors and rivals hold them. They want all Sigil - and all the Great Ring - to revere them as creators of the multiverse.
The Signers' current strategy for demonstrating their superior powers involves reviving a dead god. Currently, groups within the faction are bickering over which long-forgotten power to choose. Some have settled upon Aoskar, a former god of portals and opportunity, as the best candidate for the procedure.
However, others favor Enki, a god of rivers and oceans once from Mechanus and known for his great hatred of fiends - when he still had worshipers, that is. Both sides are organizing campaigns to "believe" these ex-powers right out of their helpless state adrift in the Astral. (They've even prepared little figures of the two gods to help foster concentration. - Ed.) They merely await the factol's choice.
Factol Darius
Female human planar
Darius the Veyl currently serves as factol of the Sign of One, This olive-skinned woman has soft gray eyes and a flawless complexion. Her vague, unfocused demeanor matches her soft appearance, yet somehow she holds a body's attention. Something in the fleeting moments of steadiness in her gaze or in the deliberate grace of her movements commands respect.
She was born in the Outlands realm Tir na Og, on the shores of the vast sea her people, the Esprene, call Feyliriel. The daughter of a philosophical wizard, Darius learned metaphysics at her father's knee almost before she could rattle her bone-box. Exposed to rationalism, hedonism, stoicism, mysticism, solipsism, existentialism, and other systems of thought from an early age, Darius became cynical toward intellectual exercise. Her contempt for the mental realm changed when her father introduced her to spellpower: Clearly, thought properly channeled could accomplish a lot!
Darius specialized in divination, earning the title "The Veyl," an epithet bestowed by the Esprene upon one who dispenses wise advice. She might have remained forever in her father's house, studying magic and counseling bashers on the horns of dilemmas, but for the arrival of the assassin Toddy.
Toddy had just accepted (under duress) an assignment from the fiend Za'rafas to kill a wanderer named Mason. The tanar'ri's superiors had caught the chant that Mason could successfully block an Outlands raid they were planning, so they wanted him out of the picture. Thing was, Mason had pulled Toddy out of lethal scrapes twice. The assassin wanted to spare his friend: if he took his time, might his employer perish in the raid? Then Toddy need never finish his work. 'Course, if Za'rafas survived, Toddy'd take his friend's place in the dead-book! What did Darius advise?
The Veyl did far more than advise. After scrutinizing the immediate future, she recommended that Toddy lie low: Za’rafas would die of wounds received in battle. Then she sought out Mason. One meeting with the roving warrior showed her that his flair for diplomacy, combined with his talent in tactics and strategy, would give him what he needed to lead Outlands locals in defense against the tartar ri. Course, putting down the raid quickly didn't entirely prevent warfare, or the destruction that comes with it: renegade tanar'ri razed a few Outlands burgs before their defeat.
Welbey, Darius's family home, numbered among the ravaged hamlets. The Veyl escaped death, but her father and the other village folk did not. With nothing left of her former life, Darius chose to relocate to Sigil.
Once ensconced there, she drifted into company with Signers and soon joined their faction. She proved a potent dreamer - some say she achieved her present position merely by envisioning herself there. Darius suffers less from self-centeredness than most Signers. Her primary goal for the faction seems a noble one: popularizing the Sign of One's tolerance for diversity throughout society while enhancing the empathic abilities of the faction's members. 'Course, she agrees that her faction deserves more respect, so she authored the scheme to revive a dead god.
Thing is, she's not certain Aoskar's the better candidate. Sure, the Signers could handle the opposition they'd receive when the Athar picked up the chant. (The Defiers use Aoskar as a symbol of their group's beliefs; plus, they make their base in his Shattered Temple. - Ed.) She's not even worried about the Lost learning the dark of the plan: Aoskar's revival would require the destruction of the Athar’s magical tree, the Bois Verdurous. See, what concerns Darius is that the Lady of Pain booted Aoskar out of Sigil. Some say this god of portals got so popular even the dabus worshiped him, and others say folks started revering the Lady as one of his aspects! Reviving an enemy of the Lady of Pain just ain't a healthy idea.
Darius favors garb of beige, ecru, or cream, generally donning tunic, kilt, and many-strapped sandals beneath the silken folds of her balandrana. Her most notable idiosyncrasy is the wimple covering her hair and neck: No one ever sees the Veyl without it
We imagined the gods into existence - so sorry you don't like them.
The Hall of Speakers
Seems amazing, but a body bound and determined to poke his sneezer around the Hall of Speakers can see quite a lot before anyone thinks to stop him. See, the Halls a public place: Any sod can get in, but few get to look beneath the surface of normal legislative goings-on.
The Signer headquarters rests in a lively comer of the Clerk's Ward. Street criers, scribes, touts, and couriers stay plenty busy. Visitors to the Hall need their services and will pay. Mercenaries resting between campaigns book rooms in the lush inns here, refurbish their gear, and change their foreign coins for local jink with the moneylenders. Importers of exotica sell their goods to the wealthy and the perverse. Devas in disguise pursue the goals of their powers. And lone knights of the post - the most adept at the trade - skim the rich pickings available.
The Hall itself has no lawns or terraces, but rests amid the surrounding welter of affluent lodgings and domiciles. Its tall, graceful spire makes the place hard to miss. (So does the titanic iron statue our front, called "The Power of the One. " - Ed.) The oval Hall itself is carved of marble. A covered arcade surrounds the building, interrupted by two entrances: the Signer’s Portal at one end and the Speaker’s Portal at the other.
The foyer inside either entrance looks bright and airy. The walls seem to glow, and high windows checker the floor with light. A continuous stream of visitors flows through the entrances: some head for the meeting rooms and private apartments leased out by the Signers, but more make for the chamber called the Speaker’s Podium. A basher standing in the foyer of the Speaker’s Portal can bear quire clearly the debate raging dead ahead:
"I demand that the Fhurling Bridge be demolished forthwith!" yells an irate Indep. "That crumbling span's a hazard to any basher crossing it, and I'm tired of telling the Clueless why they can't get from Ulick's Bowse in the Hive to Ilyer's Haberdasher in the Lower Ward without going all the way up to the Zaddfum Trestle."
Debates such as this usually get resolved in the Council Chambers to either side of the Speakers Podium. Folks on the speaker’s list come here to hold public hearings or discussions. Getting on the speaker's list (and getting others off) makes this Hall another arena for inter-faction battles. See, anybody can be a speaker, as long as they get on the list. The Council of Speakers comprises only official delegates from each legitimate faction - factols or other high-ups. The Speaker, always a Signer, oversees all public sessions, presiding over the debates regarding statutes, decrees, and Sigil law. After sufficient public hearings, the Council retires to chambers to vote the proposals into law - or vote them down.
Across the corridor and to either side of the Speaker’s Podium, a visitor might spot two spiral staircases that give access to the Hall's upper chambers. A pair of identical stairways flanks the Signers' Portal at the other end of the hall, and more stairs are situated at intervals along the corridor that encircles the Hall. A basher climbing to the top of a stairway sees a long, curved hall, sported with doors at regular intervals. Behind these doors lie meeting rooms, faction members' kips, and the rented cases of visitors and dignitaries who don’t mind having landlords who happen to be the centers of the multiverse. The stairs each climb 10 stories above the Halls main floor.
Back on the main level, heading down the corridor, more than one cutter's been accosted by some berk trying to sprinkle flower petals over him. Through the open door to one of the meeting rooms here, a body might set a dozen more petal-strewers conversing. "Sigil's hopeless," a woman says, "The only thing that grows here is razorvine. I almost think we should give up." A man’s voice answers her: "Nonsense, The rich have conservatories. Once we fill them with roses, we'll have a better idea of how to tackle the streets." Other bashers passing by chuckle quietly at the discussion of the Rosebringers, a sect devoted to filling the multiverse with the scent of roses, which most considered merely a bubber-tale.
The far end of the Hall's faction territory - but except for the guards on either side of the Signers' Portal, the area frequently goes unpatrolled. A daring basher could approach even the factol's quarters without anyone squelching the peel. Though glimpsing Darius herself always makes a body wonder what she's thinking, spying on her rooms is pretty' dull. 'Course, a blood that does as much concentrating as she does wouldn't clutter up her bland quarters with a lot of knick-knacks and treasure.
Exiting the factol's rooms into the Hall’s immense garden, a basher can sneak right past the faction's Chamber of Concord. Watching the long line of Signers pass out its door, a basher has to ask himself how they ever arrive at consensus. Aligning so many personal multiverses into a shared view can’t be easy.
The most mysterious chamber in the Hall of Speakers is the tomb of Faction founder Rilith. The impressive vault, oval like most other rooms in the Hall, features strangely organic pilasters supporting a cornice that resembles stalactites arranged in a line. Magical light from high above in the curved roof - everything looks curved in the Hall of Speakers - focuses on a massive urn carved from a colossal ocean pearl. According to the chant, Rilith’s remains rest within that urn. A contingent of Signers watch the thing day and night, all the while thinking about their founder. See, they fear Rilith might disappear from history, should their attention lapse a moment. And, without its founder, the faction itself might vanish!
Safe Houses. 'Course, Signers don't believe in maintaining a network of safe houses where beleaguered faction members can go to ground. Why waste the time? Signers in trouble ought to imagine themselves out of the blinds - or at least, imagine a hiding place into existence.
The faction does possess a sanctuary on the Beastlands, which functions as an extension of its headquarters. When a permanent portal to the conservatory of an old Krigalan manor suddenly appeared in the Hall of Speakers, the Signers adapted the ruins of the estate to their purposes. Appropriately enough, travelers need only envision a speaker's key to use the exit. (See The DM's Dark.- Ed.)
More than a century ago, the stonework of the abandoned manor was repaired, and its rooms cleaned and refurnished, Sarazh, an aging factor, oversees the management of the Dreamhearth, as the case is called.
Sarazh
Female tiefling planar
Her wrinkled white skin, dreamy blue eyes, frail frame, and wispy gray hair escaping its haphazard knot all make a body think of Sarazh as a Signer of failing abilities. Nothing could be further from the truth. The factor’s intellect remains keener than all of her cohorts' faculties put together. Her trick of correlating many bits of seemingly unrelated information to deduce facts gives her the edge in nearly any situation.
Sarazh oversees the operation of the Dreamhearth, coordinating the activities of Signers who use the manor as their base and studying the multiverse for clues that might help Factol Darius steer the fan ion to its best advantage. The factor has a phenomenal memory - a few minutes' search allows her to dredge from her mind the contents of a page read decades ago, the lines of a face from her childhood, and even the layout of a city she visited only briefly. She knows the names of current faction members and their deployment: namers living ordinary lives in Sigil, factotums away on errands to the Inner Planes, or factors engaged in delicate espionage.
Characters visiting the Dreamhearth will encounter Sarazh at least once. It's a cinch she'll deduce more about them and their plans than they can possibly guess.
It's simple, really, you think what i think you think. Cross me, and I'll make you wish I never thought of you at all.
Within the Ranks
Some Signers seem like vague daydreamers, while others display impressive gifts of observation. But the one quality all Signers exhibit is open-mindedness: After all, when a body can imagine anything or anyone into existence, the multiverse gets treated to a wide diversity of creatures and creations! No true Signer takes offense at even unpopular statements or beliefs from someone they encounter, A fiend from Carceri deserves a hearing as much as a deva from Elysium or a local thief that bobbed some cutter's case.
Signers generally also seem more self-centered than most folks. See, exterminating a rival or betraying a friend become more attractive alternatives when a body views others as products of one's imagination without subjective realities. Such self-centeredness means Signers have difficulty understanding (or caring about) others' feelings.
Role-Playing the Signers
Signers can have nearly any personality types as long they see the multiverse as a place they can shape.
Alignment. The Sign of One bars no one from joining. 'Course, remember that lawful types consider the multiverse a complex but orderly place that exists objectively and can be analyzed by bashers who live in it. Such folks can't tolerate the subjective nature of reality Signers espouse. Lawful good folk, for instance, feel awfully peery of the views of evil beings. Even lawful neutral types seem uneasy about the lack of order in the Signer creed. Only lawful evil characters, with their self-serving behavior, might appreciate the philosophy of the Sign of One for allowing them to seize the advantage wherever they choose.
Cutlers of neutral or chaotic alignment can feel at home in this faction. The former understand how positive and negative thinking can help a body balance tragedy with triumph in life. Chaotic Signers let whims direct their thoughts and like to imagine new things into existence just for the sake of change.
Good Signers revive practices from the faction's early years, like teaching their fellows how to think positively. In the reality they envision, folks all treat each other kindly. Evil Signers try to make rivals think negatively. They imagine a cosmos where they enjoy power and recognition. And more neutral Signers envision a life where bashers mind their own business.
Class. Signers welcome members of any character class. Thing is, certain classes, like paladins, likely won't feel comfortable in the Faction, Paladins who do join hope to teach all beings a proper reverence for self as the font of all creation. They believe many multi verses exist side by side: one for each individual.
Fighters in the Sign of One seek to prove their status as the chosen of the multiverse through brilliant combat. They believe defeating an enemy in combat will send him spiraling down into negative thinking and thus ensure that his defeat persists through time.
Signet rangers and druids think they have a special duty to envision havens for animals and to benefit the natural world, since the flora and fauna can't do it themselves. Clerics in the faction revere their gods as products of their own imagination, the way the faction's wizards think of their spells. (The faction's spellcasters love researching spells and possess wide repertoires. - Ed.)
The faction’s rogues practice imagining themselves moving stealthily as much as they actually practice stealth. When they get caught, they rarely credit their captor’s vigilance. Rather they blame themselves for envisioning failure. Signer bards feel their gift to sway audiences gives them great power.
Race. The Sign of One, among the most diverse of factions, encourages all and sundry to rub elbows within the organization. Tanar'ri are Signers, as are baatezu, titans, hellcats, and aasimon, as well as bariaur, tieflings, and half-elves of the Outlands... and on down the line.
That's your problem - you think too much.
Signer Membership
The Sign of One does not recruit new members as actively as other factions. See, bashers need to prove they can alter the multiverse before the faction'll admit them. The Signers recognize the chosen by allowing faction hopefuls to register their visions for the future at headquarters. Bashers whose predictions come to pass become namers, but their faction allows them to do little more than serve as runners and legislative clerks and hold various menial jobs in the Hall of Speakers. They spend their free time improving their concentration, to prepare for greater faction duties.
Namers of 4th level or higher can ascend in the ranks the same way they got in - successfully predicting future events. (Each rank in the Sign of One has a special conclave devoted to evaluating members of the level below, checking their recorded predictions, and promoting the most talented. - Ed.) Factotums enjoy the privilege of going on faction missions and speaking at major events in the Cage and elsewhere. Some perform guard duty within the Hall (such as at Rilith's Tomb), and the best can join special "think tanks" concentrating on the Signers' vital goals.
A character must have reached 10th level to become a factor. These Signers work as personal assistants to the factol, guard faction outposts, and supervise factotums involved in complex missions. As factors have worked tirelessly to improve their concentration abilities, they form the core of the Sign of One s "think tanks."
Faction Abilities.
Signers saving throws against (and attempts to disbelieve) illusions are advantaged, as they believe all the world is created from within. In addition, Signers can spend Inspiration as an action to invoke the power of imagining to effect minor coincidental changes to their environment, like an unexpected door providing a much-needed escape route or a street crew forgetting to light a lantern; as a rule, these changes cannot change what has already been established in the scene, and the DM should have final say over what is an allowable coincidence.
Factotums gain the following feat:
The Chant
Though they want everyone in the Cage to see them as serious, powerful managers of legislative matters, the chant's got some dirt on the Signers. Seems they look for berks talented at booing, whistling, and applauding to hire as audiences for proceedings in the Speaker's Podium and speeches and presentations elsewhere. They figure that using disapproving listeners to induce negative thoughts in their enemies only makes sense, as does providing an approving crowd for their allies.
'Course, a body doesn't have to work for the Sign of One to park his ears in the Hall of Speakers awhile: any old berk can come in and listen to a session. The best ones revolve around a new bill the Bleak Cabal proposes: that the position of Speaker no longer be held by Signers. The Bleakers figure that barmies from the Gatehouse in the Hive should preside behind the Podium. Laws the madmen formulate would prove the senselessness of things in short order. And it's just like the chaosmen to support an even more extreme concept: Their bill requires that no one stand at the Podium. Just think of the chaos that’d ensue!
Speaking of chaos, a basher by the name of Waring (Pl/♂human/W15/NE) has turned up in die gate town of Xaos. He claims to be an ex-proxy of Hades. Says he turned stag in Hopeless and wants asylum before the power puts him in the dead-book. Waring’s got to be pullin' a peel, but what if he's for real? The Dustmen want him in their hands, figuring he knows some fearsome darks on the land of the dead. The Godsmen also have an interest in the supposed ex-proxy: Surely he’s got the inside track on the true nature of the powers. 'Course, the Athar trust that Waring could prove that Hades is a fraud. The real question is this: Can the Signers get to Xaos before any of their rivals and before Waring skips town? Since they hope to revive a power. Darius wants to get the dark from the death god's ex-proxy.