#dustmen

Lost London: The Great Dust Heap

Before it was King’s Cross, it was known as Battle Bridge. And before the railways arrived, another vast landmark dominated the area: the Great Dust Heap. It was here that the contents of dustcarts were emptied, producing a huge mound consisting of all the detritus of London’s coal fires – mostly ash and cinders, with other household waste mixed through.

Every day, scavengers would scale the heap and sift for anything of value - broken pottery, earthenware, oyster shells, discarded pans, rags, dead animals – that they might sell on for a few pennies. They would be joined by feral dogs, cats, pigs and fowl, picking their way through for anything remotely edible. All of them were likely unaware of the most valuable component of the heap – the ash itself.

Ok so if we really want to talk about 

Now planescape torment as a game is mostly strongest in the start, the game reaches its peak once you leave for the Outlands and doesn’t really recover until the very end at the return to Sigil, something which I wish the enhanced edition would have fixed.  But I think one of the reasons why this game is so beloved is in large part due to its strong opening.  And whats funny at first is that it is actually closer in structure to the Pathfinder:Kingmaker situation than the Baldur’s Gate I opening.  You awake in a crisis and need to escape from a building with different rooms having different mechanics be introduced.  And while it is a lot faster if you don’t do the sidequests, you can’t just finish the tutorial in 5 mins the way you can with Candlekeep.  Despite that, I think Planescape surpassing even Baldur’s Gate in its opening.  Lets talk about why

1) Aesthetic.  One of the most powerful thing about Planescape is that it has a very specific art direction, one which I have not seen in any fantasy before or sense, this philosopher hobo view of cosmic metaphor.  While PS:T is undeniably part of the D&D universe and is just as much fantasy as Baldur’s Gate, it feels wholly unlike the former, even though both games are canon in the same universe.  The game specifically removes most of the trappings of fantasy, there is a single sword and a single suit of armor in the whole game (the suit of armor is a companion), there are not dragons, there are no goblins/orcs/giants/drow/Mind flayers, you never explore ancient ruins of a lost civilization or restore a monarchy, you don’t even defend a village from monsters.  

   This game abandons the conventional trappings of fantasy instead having an aesthetic of...well a slum.  Your initial weapons include an iron spike, a scalpel, a plybar, a severed arm, and a crunch, you travel to sewers and are murdered in like 40 different ways.  And the Morgue is an absolutely great to place to set the tone, the whole place is full of images of emboldening fluid, dissected corpses, and body parts, but rather than being used to be creepy or evil it is actually rather nice.  They aren’t enemies to be destroyed...they are you.  This place of corpses and preservatives is where you belong, because you are after all, a corpse who keeps refusing to die.  

2) it sets the tone, specifically in not judging a book by its cover.  The Mortuary could easily have been a sinister realm of necromancers with their zombie servants doing experiments among the dead, but the tutorial puts you in the framework of not assuming that the sinister is evil.  A floating skull can be your friend, you don’t have to attack the zombies, and the weird necromancers in robes talking about True Deaths are just stoic goths.  In a Planescape setting and especially in a game that is as role-play heavy as this one, it is important to communicate to the player that they need to take the weird stuff on its surface rather than assume things are going to follow a standard fantasy storylines.  Maybe the two demon ladies can be your friend, maybe its best to talk to the creepy hag, assumptions will not help you in this game 

3) Its not entirely linear.  A lot of the content is optional If you want, you can get through this tutorial in maybe 10-15 mins if you skip the side content.  Also much of the content has multiple resolutions depending on your play style, making it much more an example of self expression rather than “I need to pick the locks now” 

4) It is an actual story segement.  My issue with Kingmaker or Bloodlines is that the tutorial is just....a place you learn the mechanics and nothing more, while the Morgue is directly related to the plot of Planescape.  You need to learn about yourself as the Nameless One, you get to meet and learn about Morte, you meet Dhall and find out more aobut the story,  You meet Deionarra, and most importantly where you wake up is also the entrance of the final boss.  The Tutorial level is absolutely necessary to understand the story of the game and is infact more necessary than the whole Curst nonsense. \

5) It establishes the mechanics.  Despite using the same engine and being set in the same universe as Baldur’s Gate, the experience is totally different in terms of gameplay.  PS:T needs to introduce how important dialogue options are, that your stats can effect the various conversions, that you are immortal and that htis game has a much more visual novel/adventure game feel to it than the more combat oriented BG.  lets contrast some points real quick

In Candlekeep, you have to do an errant for a guy and normally he gives you some money but in one of my playthroughs he gave me a +1 dagger.  I didn’t know why the difference until I looked it up and was like “oh I had 18 charisma”.  Meanwhile planescape torment, it informs you about the different stat and their effect on dialogue in order to let players know to plan their stats accordingly

To use another example, in the Mortuary there are a bunch of giant skeletons chilling around in the upper level.  In BG that would be a challenge to defeat, but in PS:T, talking to them while having this one book and a high enough Int means you can deactivate them, getting XP for each one and looking their armor to learn spells.  This is going to be a hallmark of PS:T and it is established here

The fact that you can get through this whole level only killing a single zombie is right away a major different from BG, where you kill like 90% of the cast.  

6) It sets the tone of Planescape.  One of the reasons why this game is so beloved is that PS:T kinda delivers on the RPG promise.  There are like 20 zombies in this level and almost all of them has a different way of interacting with them and unique appearance.  One of them has stitches that you can cut with a scapel to find a not, one is holding a book, one losses its arm that you can lose as a club, there is a zombie who is actually a human spy dressed up as a zombie (who can dress you up too) almost everything in this level has a unique method of interactivity, and that is before Morte tries to hit on them.  Honestly one of hte failings of PS:T is that no other part of the game is as interactive as this particular level.  

7) You can return to the Motuary throughout the rest of the game, making this place useful.  Even if you do every single side-quest you can first time through, there will still be more to do. You come back here when you die, you need to go here for the final dungeon, some quests take you but most critically there is a whole zombie sidequest here.  later in the game a crying zombie will give you the power to talk to the dead.  If you think of it, you can return to this place and talk to every single zombie here, each of whom has their own story, a few of which are quite elaborate, and one of them is your old buddy who has some items for you.  

In short, PS:T is to me the ideal RPG tutorial (though I do wish I could get through it a bit faster on a second play-through) because it feels like an actual part of the game rather than simply “the part where you do the mechanics” 

You can tell just from the name – The Eternal Boundary – that Planescape’s first adventure is aiming for heady stuff. What you get is, well, a bar, a citadel, a bit old mausoleum and some city slums. But that’s OK! When the infinite multiverse spreads out before you, maybe a bit of restraint is in order. The adventure is rated for levels one through three, after all.

The Eternal Boundary is all about the stage dressing, gussying up your basic D&D module with the flash and flare of the planes. The graveyard isn’t just a graveyard, is the Mortuary of Sigil, where death is dealt with on a grander scale than anywhere else in the cosmos. The citadel isn’t some tower on a hill, it’s a fortress surrounded by a molten sea on the Elemental Plane of fire. It’s the names – Green Marvent, the Dancing Man, the Isle of Black Trees – and the way people talk about things – crazy folks are barmies, jink is coin and finding your name in the dead book, well, that is self-explanatory – and the casual way everyone shifts from one reality to the next that makes Planescape special. Like the factions, it’s about ideas, and approach. The Eternal Boundary is the perfect introduction.

The Athar 

There are no stories told in a vacuum There is no prophecy lighting our way There is just a lot of darkness to be afraid of So it's a good thing we are not afraid

There is no Superman in that phone booth There is no rewarding our faith There is no one who can save us So it's a good thing we don't need to be saved

There are no starships in low earth orbit No aliens to save us from ourselves There is no voice willing to speak for us So it's a good thing we know how to yell!

There is no chosen one, no destiny, no fate There's no such thing as magic There is no light at the end of this tunnel So it's a good we brought matches

Mercykiller

“ Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No.”

Dustmen

"Maybe you are right. Where did I come from and where will I go, when I die? Maybe all this time that is what I wanted: the freedom to find out." - Lust, Full Metal Alchemist 2003 

Harmonium

“The needs of the many, outweigh, the needs of the few”- Spock

Doomguard

THE MULTIVERSE BREATHES. IT GROWS. IT STAGNATES. IT FORGES ITS CHAINS AROUND THE PLANES LINK BY LINK. IN TIME, EVEN ENTROPY MAY BE CHAINED.  WHEN A THING SEALS ITSELF AGAINST ITS OWN DESTRUCTION, IT MERELY DIES A DIFFERENT DEATH.”- Coaxmetal

Bleak Cabal

“Life. Loathe it or ignore it. You can’t like it.”- Marvin the Robot 

Fated

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?”- Andrew Ryan 

Godsmen

“What is a human being, then?' 'A seed.' 'A ... seed?' 'An acorn that is unafraid to destroy itself in growing into a tree.” ― David Zindell, The Broken God

Anarchists

"Anarchy is, and always has been, a romance. It is also clearly the only morally sensible way to run the world." ----Alan Moore

Chaosmen

“Everybody got this broken feeling

Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets

Everybody wants a box of chocolates

And a long-stem rose

Everybody knows- Everybody knows”

Signers

“But there is only one truth that is your truth. That's the one that's formed by whatever point of view that you chose to view it from. It's a revised perception that protects you”  Kensuke, NGE

Senates

“Think you've seen it all? Think again. Outside those doors, we might see anything. We could find new worlds, terrifying monsters, impossible things. And if you come with me... nothing will ever be the same again!”- 10th Doctor

Transcended Order 

Do not think.  Become”-Snow White, 10th Kingdom

Luke Skywalker: Alright. I'll give it a try.

Yoda: No. Try not. Do or do not. There is no try

Fraternity of Order

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle. ―Joseph Heller, Catch-22 Joseph Heller

Free League 

“I walk a lonely road the only one that I have ever known...”- Jesus 

Collectivists

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” 

“There fucking Comnulists” Jon Tron