History TabletopGame / Planescape

* AlwaysNight: Lunia, the first layer of Mount Celestia, is an unusual positive example of this trope. The layer is an eternal starry night on the pristine beaches by a freshwater sea. Karasuthra, the third layer of the Beastlands, is another positive (though perhaps less calming) example.

** Also the gods themselves. Gods gain power based on how strongly their followers believe in them. Gods with more followers tend to be stronger than gods with fewer followers, and they can give that power back to their followers in the form of spells for their clerics. "In the Planes, belief is power."

* ToadLicking: One of the flavor text quotes a Sensate's opinion on licking a Slaadi. He says that it is a horrible mistake... that everyone should make once in his life.

* TheScottishTrope: People of Sigil believe that referring to the Lady of Pain by her full name makes her pay attention, and thus refer to her as 'The Lady'.

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The Independent League is a gathering point for people who don't believe too strongly in any faction philosophy one way or the other, banding together for common protection. They include many of the city's merchants and innkeepers, who benefit from being neutral.

* ThePlan: EVERYONE is running one. Except for the Xaositects, who think TheMultiverse is one big GambitRoulette [[ProbabilityPileup mess-up]] run by no one in particular and behave accordingly, and the Ciphers, who live by DontThinkFeel. Also the Bleakers who think that there's no inherent point to existence.

* XanatosGambit: EVERYONE is running one. Except for the Xaositects, who think TheMultiverse is one big XanatosRoulette [[ProbabilityPileup mess-up]] run by no one in particular and behave accordingly, and the Ciphers, who live by DontThinkFeel. Also the Bleakers who think that there's no inherent point to existence.

* CelestialParagonsAndArchangels: The aptly named celestials. There are the lawful archons, the fey eladrin (who were only recently made a PC race), and the guardinals.

** The modrons are the inhabitants of Mechanus, and resemble clockwork geometric shapes possessing some combination of limbs, tentacles, and facial features. Divided into different ranks (the most well-known being the cube-shaped quadrones), the modrons are the living embodiments of law and order. A modron of any given station is only aware of the ranks immediately above and below it; anything beyond that simply does not register.
*** Sometimes modrons are touched by chaos and go rogue. This doesn't mean that they start wantonly breaking laws and living large; they're still lawful to an alien degree, just slightly less so than their peers.
** The frog-like slaadi are to chaos what the modrons are to order.

* MoralDissonance: The Upper Planes allow the Blood War—an eternal conflict that's bloodthirsty even by the standards of Warhammer 40,000—to continue without end since it pits the two main fiendish factions against each other, and away from the good folk. The problem is, the Blood War seems to have a corrupting influence all on its own. [[spoiler:This is explore more thoroughly in Planescape: Torment.]]

* AGodIAmNot: Lady Of Pain. Her powers make her a deity for all intents and purposes, but for unknown reasons, worshiping her or referring to her as a goddess is one of the quickest ways to bring down her wrath.
** The most common theory is that active worship could make her a goddess. The whole idea of Sigil as a neutral ground crossroads of the multiverse is that gods have no access there. If the Lady became one, the whole barrier would collapse in a PuffOfLogic.

* AGodIAmNot: The Lady of Pain.

* PlatonicProstitution

The factions, which form the backbone of character interactions (and fill a role similar to "splats" in the WorldOfDarkness), are:

* The Inner Planes, each of which is based around a [[ElementalPowers theme]] regarding [[ElementalBaggage matter and energy]]. For example, in the Plane of Fire, everything is on fire, on the Plane of Water everything is underwater, etc.
* The Outer Planes, based on the [[CharacterAlignment alignments]]. Nine of the outer planes correspond precisely to an alignment; the other eight are in in-between spaces. For example, Mechanus (also known as Nirvana) is a LawfulNeutral clockwork universe which seems to consist mostly of gigantic gears tended by robot-like beings; while Baator, the LawfulEvil plane, is literally {{Hell}}, and Bytopia is a LawfulGood / NeutralGood plane founded on the idea of honest hard work. The Outer Planes are the literal afterlife where the gods live and their followers go when they die--it just turns out that with the right keys, you can walk there. [[color:white:This is an invoked, in-universe example of Character Alignment.]]
* "Pathway universes", the key elements of the magic portal network, including the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, the Infinite Staircase, and Sigil itself.

* AGodAmI: Subverted with the Lady Of Pain. Her powers make her deity for all intents and purposes, but for unknown reasons, worshipping her or referring to her as a goddess is one of the quickest ways to bring down her wrath.
** The most common theory is that active worship could make her a godess. The whole idea of Sigil as a neutral ground crossroads of the multiverse is that gods have no access there. If the Lady became one, the whole barrier would collapse in a PuffOfLogic.