General Petitioner Questions
Q: Are deaders "born" into the Outer Planes or do they just appear?
A: Petitioners are NOT born on the Outer Planes since petitioners don't breed...
newly arrived deaders on a given plane might just "pop up",
or there might be a 'sacred place' whence they come out.
Q: Are they the same sex in death as in life?
A: Petitioners are the same sex as in life, just as they speak the same
language and have the same skin, hair and eye colour (one of the few things
they keep from their life) -- again, special conditions notwithstanding.
Q: Does the way they've died have any infuence on their physical form in the
afterlife?
A: The way a basher dies doesn't have any influence, or burned witches
should all look like ash heaps as petitioners :]
Playing a Petitioner
Q: I'm a DM and I want to start an all-petitioner campaign. What should I do?
A: Make sure first that your players like the PS setting and are more oriented towards
role-playing than roll-playing.
Then select the locale that'll be their home turf, read thoroughly the corresponding
chapters in the appropriate Planes of... boxed set, and the chapter about
their patron deities in On Hallowed Ground. Develop any town or burg the pc's
might use as their home base.
Imagine then the following introduction to the all-deader campaign: you, the DM, organise a little
solo adventure for each player.... at the end of which his character
dies!!! The player then proceeds to the 'real' campaign in which he plays
the petitioner!!! Fun, ain't it?
Q: Why can't deaders advance in levels?
A: Because that's how it was meant in the first place by Zeb Cook, creator
of the PlaneScape setting. This is confirmed by Colin McComb in his great
source book, On Hallowed Ground.
The idea was that a deserving petitioner became a proxy rather than raising
in level.
Christian Lautz, from the PS list on the internet, has a suggestion though:
The level advancement prohibition is a rule to be discarded in this
case, I think. Rules are made to be broken, aren't they.
But the
criteria for giving XP's should be changed dramatically, as you said.
No XP's for wealth, monster bashing or adventure solving. XP's will
only
be awarded for spiritual or philosophical advancement according to
the
plane or realm the petitioner lives in.
In some planes the
advancement is a complete alteration of the petitioner (lemure ->
baatezu); in others you just gain levels, or raise in status (like the
'palace of burocracy', chief of the scribe bureau, salary class A4).
I don't think that it should be a once in a lifetime thing; in Baator,
for instance, you can become a pit fiend (if you are strong or cunning
enough). The
problem is that it gets more difficult the more you rise.
The hidden
XP's seems to be a good concept, but the player should somehow notice
whether he is still 'in line' with the plane (i.e. sudden failure of
special powers).
Q: Which Factions or Sects are more appropriate for a deader pc?
A: Membership of a Faction or Sect shall be carefully chosen.
Most of them don't
fit a petitioner (Dustmen, Athar, Prolongers). Maybe it's a good
guideline to allow only those that have their HQ in the character's specific plane
(like the Verdant Guild for the Beastlands, or the Guvners for Mechanus).
Q: Do petitioner player characters age?
A: Just as 'standard' petitioners don't age, deader characters shouldn't age either.
However, as you may find hard to imagine a plane full of petitioners the same age,
maybe they 'age' as they get closer to their power:
At the beginning, deaders all look like young adults (except wise
ones who look old because sages're believed to be old, and also depending
on each given power -- a power of death may have petitioners looking like very old humans
near death).
Optionally, deaders might then age as they get closer to their power/realm/layer...
after all, that would be like getting 'wiser' on that particular realm.
to the Petitioners Page.