The Second Upheaval
Contents
The Chant
I was working in the clinic one day, when all of a sudden the doors started bleeding! Next thing I know, we’re starting to see more people every hour than we would have in a week. I didn’t even know what to do with all the bodies! The plant out back couldn’t eat any more corpse, the cranium rats next door were full, and the bag of devouring was getting right picky.
It was a bloody mess, in every sense of the word. Order was impossible; the best we could do was maintain what peace we could and try to keep the protests to non-essential areas. Every now and then we’d get reports of the Lady making an appearance, flaying or mazing a bunch of sods making too fuss, before disappearing again. Things’d quieten down for a bit after that… till berks forgot about her last statement and started acting up again.
Well we had all the food didn’t we? We’re smart. Don’t call us ‘Takers’ for nothing now, do they blood? With the best guards and a nicely fortified base we just rode out the whole thing. Barely even noticed it. Well, not those of us who never looked out any windows at least. Streets were paved with blood. I’ve never seen corpses piled that high.
I did think it odd when our doors started bleeding. More folks than ever started popping by for breakfast and a drink, so business was booming for a while… till our supply dried up. Never seen so many people angry about porridge.
What a rush! All with the power of our mind! Let no-one doubt the power of the Signers and the Will of One! We resurrected him! A dead god, alive again! Aoskar re-
The Dark of It
The exact course of events leading up to the Second Upheaval are nebulous, and amount to dozens of colluding factors that piled high tensions in the Cage and its fomenting dissent.
The first warning was the death of the Fated Factol Duke Rowan Darkwood, and the resulting sentencing and execution of its perpetrators. In what was a highly publicized ‘trial’ of a group of chaos-makers, one of whom was the much beloved ‘Hero of the Hive’, the first organized protests occurred courtesy of the Athar and the Sinkers. Seems folks were none-too-happy about the rampant inequality and suspiciously selective deployment of the Wyrm. Such protests were soon quelled, but the seeds of dissent had been well and truly sown.
The second warning was the resurrection of Aoskar by a fanatical sect of Signers known as the “Will of One”. These barmies decided to demonstrate the true power of the collective mortal mind by bringing a dead god back to life. This not being enough of a statement for them though, they opted to bring back just about the most leatherheaded choice they could… Aoskar. Yes, that same god that the Lady had killed ages back. The success of said mission is attributed to a figure known as “E”, who was subsequently flayed when spreading the good word of what had been done on er return to Sigil.
The final warning sign came when the Lady shut the doors to the Outer Planes following the death of Asmodeus and a massive reshuffle in the hells. The resulting power vacuum kickstarted a huge resurgence in Blood War activity, and the second it started spilling into the Cage the Lady mazed near-half the fiends involved and slammed shut the doors. The subsequent fear and uncertainty led to a huge amount of Faction warring and in-fighting, soon spiralling out of control and into a total lockdown - and the bloodiest period of Sigil’s recorded history.
Impact on the Factions
When the doors opened once more, most factions came out relatively unscathed in the grand scheme of things. Seems whatever had the Lady spooked was over, and with no word as to what would happen with the factions, things kept going as they were. Most folks assumed the standard “15 only” rule to still be in effect, and only now are sods starting to wonder if maybe the Lady's changed her mind...
Having anticipated such a complete shutdown of the Cage and unhappiness of its residents, the Fated had stockpiled huge amounts of food and weapons ready to be sold for a colossal markup. These “Takers” soon lived up to their name - becoming public enemy number one when the true extent of their reserves and callousness was made known.
Once the dust had settled, the Fated imploded with infighting. They decided a complete rebrand was needed to ‘put the past behind them’ and ‘hope berks would forget’. As such, the Consortium was born.
The Athar saw a huge boom in faction membership. Turns out, the notion that “a god was to blame for everything” made for fantastic propaganda. That, combined with the Athar’s push to be known for public services in the world of healthcare (the Hive Clinic being the pioneer of such efforts) meant countless worried berks flocked to them in solidarity.
The Dustmen were swimming in corpses, and they made ‘a sweet killing' off of Dead Contracts in all that time. Uncoincidentally, there are easily five times as many undead servants toiling about the Mortuary as before nowadays.
The Greeners - not yet a faction but a small sect of Anarchists - saw a huge boom in membership likewise, as many bloods came to terms with the notion of a ‘supply chain’.
The Mercykillers had to revise the way in which they deployed justice. Then-Factol Nilesia led a huge campaign to work more closely with the Guvners, ensuring fairer trials and a more even dispensation of justice. The formation of the three Mercykiller Divisions shortly followed. Exactly how much has changed remains to be seen…
The Sinkers revelled in such an acute show of entropy. Pentar loved it, then called it a day and decided that now was as good a time as any to retire.
The Xaositects loved whatever was going on - not that they paid a huge amount of attention to why it was happening.