Ditch

The Ditch is Sigil's largest body of "water", and crosses the city nearly directly spikeward/downward. It's widely considered the boundary between the Lower Ward and the Hive Ward, although most place the Ditch itself within the Lower Ward.

The Ditch is 50' wide drainage aqueduct, which some say is a tributary of the River Styx. It's frequently used as a dumping ground for Cagers looking for an easy way to get rid of refuse, or a body that's been asking too many questions. The waters are heavily polluted and corrosive, partly due to their extra-planar origin, partly because it's also used by the Great Foundry for their waste runoff. A corpse thrown in the Ditch will be unrecognizable in a matter of hours. Every five-to-eight months, water from the River Oceanus pours through, clearing out the Ditch and bringing fresh water. This is often a time for celebration, with children playing in the waters for the brief time before the river becomes too corroded once aain.

People can avoid the Ditch between the Lower Ward and Hive by passing spikeward of it, or crossing one of a few bridges. The downward end falls directly off Sigil's edge. Other methods of crossing include the Fhurling Bridge and the Bridge That Spans Worlds.

Most of Sigil's portals require walking through, but there's still a great need for for various shipping and transport services operating on a larger scale, and that typically requires transport by water. Accordingly, for all its faults, the Ditch is an important part of Sigil's commercial infrastructure.

Nearby

Locations on the banks of the Ditch include:

• The Black Sails tavern
• The Styx Oarsman saloon
• The Speckled Rat bar
• The entrance to the Bones of the Night

Trade

The most important feature of the Ditch is the Seafarer's Arch, a portal formed under the the Bridge That Spans Worlds. It's seemingly unique in Sigil, what Lissandra the Gate-Seeker has termed a "multiportal." Any number of gate keys can activate the portal, but each gate key goes to a different location. Portals are two-way. Boats travelling the Ditch tend to have the key in a special basket -- a "spritcage" -- attached to the ship's bowsprit. Known destinations (and keys) include:

• A waterfall in Cariele on Aebrynis
• The Silt Sea on Athas
• Io's Blood Isles
• The rapids below a canyon in the Khalkist Mountains on Krynn
• Mystara's Savage Coast: a cinnabryl amulet
• An oblong shoal of rocks in the Nyv Dyr on Oerth
• Ortho
• The Rock of Bral
• A sewer pipe from Toril's Underdeep into the Trackless Sea
• Amun-Thys: a scarab (since the layer is a desert, most ships are marooned and unable to return)

Upstream, ships wishing to trade must pass through the Taker's Lock, a series of watertight doors designed to get ships past a shallow part of the Ditch. Adjacent to the Lock are the Industrial Stitches, a complex series of tracks for transporting raw materials and goods into out out of the Foundry, and a major source of the waste which gets dumped into the Ditch.

Other Features

Suicide Falls is the downward terminus of the Ditch, where the waters fall outside of Sigil's walls. This is the easiest place to go beyond Sigil's edge. Not a waterfall in the traditional sense, as the water and anything contained in it that pour over the edge just disappears.

The delta near the falls contains a series of small "islands," one of which contains the Last Kiss Blossom, whose petals look like two lips pursed together in a kiss.

Arcane Remains are the remains of the first ship to enter Sigil via the Seafarer's Arch, a ship full of arcane. The ship was too wide for the Ditch, and blocked it. Within moments, the Lady of Pain appeared, her shadow slicing the boat apart to allow for traffic once again. It's now widely known that the arcane are not welcome in Sigil (although not directly barred from entry like powers). Most are afraid to touch the ship's remains, so they continue to sit in the Ditch, rotting and exposed.

The arcane's ship did not go down without a fight, of course. They brought to bear enough power both in magic and in traditional weaponry -- the ship's bombard was considerable -- that the conflagration is said to have been heard out to the gate-towns. The attack, the story goes, did what no one else had managed to do: wound the Lady. One of the blades ringing her head fell off, point-first into the Ditch. What is known, at least, is existence of the Knife in the River, a slowly rusting triangle of still-sharp metal, only a few meters from the Arcane Remains.

At night, near antipeak, when the water's at its murkiest, some Cagers claim to see some sort of Ditch Beast in the waters, which they've dubbed "Cassie."

Background Information

• Most detail on the Ditch comes from the Polyhedron #137 article Of Sigil and the Sea. The included map had a high-resolution full-color version made and posted to WotC's website as the Map of the Day in 2001.
• Lazz highlighted each of the article's sections with a label on the map. Curiously, this includes the "Gate Keys" section, which is about the various gate keys needed to travel through the Seafarer's Arch. Lazz uses this label to point to a sewer outlet.
• Of Sigil and the Sea author William James Cuffe posted a cut excerpt to his blog, about the Phantom Docks. Originally intended for the Doomguard's Ship of Chaos project, the docks have lain abandoned for years, although the Planar Trade Consortium may be repurposing the Ship of Chaos as a terrifying spelljamming ship.

References

2nd Edition

• Planescape: In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil, p. 49-50
• Polyhedron: Polyhedron Magazine 137, p. 14-17

5th Edition

• Planescape: Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse, p. 47-48, Sigil and the Outlands