Welcome to the Cage!

That's Sigil, City of Doors, realm of the Lady of Pain, gateway to all planes and possibilities. It's the most coveted burg in the multiverse, and this tome is the key to unlocking its secrets.



Now DMs and cutters alike can discover:

Little-known facts about Sigil's sites and personalities

A guide to major portals

Maps of famous locales, fiendish and divine

Evocative illustrations by DiTerlizzi, Dameron, Ruppel, and Berry

An all-new, full-color, poster-sized map of the city, pinpointing places heretofore unseen

Which pubs cater to the clueless, and which're quick to put a sod in the dead-book? Where do folks gather to catch and "Execution by Wyrm"? For whom do the Bells of Baphomet toll? Exposing both the low life and glittering highlights, In the Cage is an essential guide for any blood who plans on exploring Sigil's streets?especially any blood who plans to leave under his own power.

Product History

In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil (1995), by Wolfgang Baur and Rick Swan, is a sourcebook describing the city of Sigil. It was published in June 1995.

Continuing the Planescape Series. In the Cage was the fourth sourcebook for the Planescape setting. The first two, Planes of Chaos (1994) and Planes of Law (1995) had both been quite expansive, detailing five planes each. However in mid-1995 TSR decided to publish a trilogy of much more tightly focused sourcebook that described the center of the multiverse. It began with "A Player's Primer to the Outlands" (1995) in May, continued with In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil (1995) in June, and would conclude with The Factol’s Manifesto (1995) in July.

Another City Book. City books had grown quite popular by the mid '90s; every TSR setting was getting one. Other examples from the time period include Spelljammer's SJR5: "Rock of Bral" (1992), Al-Qadim's City of Delights (1993), Dark Sun's DSS1: "City-State of Tyr" (1993), the Realms' City of Splendors (1994), and a reprint of the Newhonian Lankhmar: City of Adventure (1993).

City books always faced one challenge: how to detail a huge urban area within the confines of a small sourcebook. In the Cage solved the problem by presenting a somewhat abstract map of Sigil, then using geomorphs to detail individual areas. It was a similar solution to that used by Lankhmar: City of Adventure (1985) when it originally debuted some years earlier.

About Gaming Handouts. TSR occasionally published unique gaming handouts starting with its release of S1: "Tomb of Horrors" (1978). The handouts in "Tomb of Horrors" are particularly interesting. They depict paperwork from Sigil, such as advertisements, menus, law postings, and receipts.

Expanding Planescape. The city of Sigil had previously been introduced in Planescape Campaign Setting (1994) and had received some additional detail in adventures in "The Eternal Boundary" (1994) and The Well of Worlds (1994). Now, In the Cage provided the most extensive look ever at center of the multiverse, including a full-color poster map and descriptions of all the wards.

There's even a brief mention of the World Serpent Inn, a plane-spanning tarvern introduced way back in OP1: Tales of the Outer Planes (1988), which would get much more attention years later in Dragon #351 (January 2007).

Whoops! The 22 HD Aoskian Hound (page 6) seems pretty tough for something with a 7 AC and a 19 THAC0. It should really have 2 HD, not 22.

Future History. The Factol’s Manifesto (1995) would close out the Outlands and Sigil trilogy just a month later. Then a year on, TSR published a book of Sigil NPCs: Uncaged: Faces of Sigil (1996).

Despite all the great attention to Sigil, TSR never fully detailed this vast city. The Hill Cantons blog highlights this in an article it calls "Planescape's Missing Megadungeon". Its main evidence for a missing megadungeon comes from In the Cage, which offers the rumors that:

"The actual city is a maze of deep tunnels, storehouses, dungeons, and corridors that have remained entirely proof against invasion for eons upon eons."

This realm called "UnderSigil" or "down below" may be somewhat more familiar to players of the Planescape: Torment (1999) computer game, but sadly it was never detailed in tabletop supplements.

About the Creators. Baur had coauthored two of the most important books for the Planescape setting in the previous year: Planes of Chaos (1994) and Planes of Law (1995). However, this would be his last work on the setting.

After several years of work, this was Swan's last book for TSR, following PHBR14: The Complete Barbarian's Handbook (1995), which was published earlier in the year.

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

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