NPCs escaping the Fortress of Regrets? (spoilers)

[Jules]

After the immortal-and-nameless-no-more protagonist of Planescape: Torment dies, there are some people who are still stuck on the Fortress. Deionarra is possibly still hanging around the Fortress, unless the passions that kept her from passing onto the planes were released with the death of TNO. If you merged with TTO, then you transport all of your NPC companions back to Sigil with the exception of Fall-from-Grace (if you brought her along), who turns that offer down. If you defeat TTO in combat, you can resurrect one of your NPC followers for the battle (if you taunt TTO into doing it) or all of them (if you persuade TTO to leave for a little while to check on the shadows). Or, if you just kill yourself with the Blade of the Immortal or unmake yourself through willpower, Morte (if you brought him along) is still alive, since he was only feigning death.

So what happens to the various people who are still on the Fortress? I'm guessing that Deionarra is finally released from the Fortress after TNO's death, and goes on to become a petitioner or die the True Death or something.

Fall-from-Grace seems like she might be able to find a way out of the Fortress, being quite plane-savvy. However, it's not a sure thing. The Practical Incarnation was also very clever, in fact probably much more so than FFG, and he didn't know how to escape the Fortress. Nordom can detect portals, but what if there are no portals to detect?

It's depressing to think of you raising all of your companions, kicking TTO's ass, and then they're all stuck on the fortress until the negative energy drains them of all life. At that point, perhaps if the whole Deionarra-becoming-a-ghost thing has to do with how the Fortress is cut off from the planes, rather than her love for TNO (i.e., the same barrier that prevents souls from coming in from the planes and reviving TNO when he dies prevents souls from leaving the fortress for the planes when they die), then maybe ALL of them become ghosts. It would be interesting to see how Annah and Deionarra got along as ghosts.

Of course, all of the above assumes that the Fortress will stick around after the death of the protagonist. Perhaps after he dies, the whole edifice crumbles, as TNO's buried memories, including his regrets, are washed away by the Styx (or lost in the Astral plane, depending on your interpretation).

[Fenix]

I thought TNO did teleport Grace back to Sigil (After TNO and TTO merge); at first she wants to stay with TNO and go with him, but I'm pretty sure she is teleported back.

I'm sure, if TNO is killed without giving a farewell to his comrades, they could find their way out. After all, isn't the Practical Incarnation's problem he was trapped in that very room where you meet him, and not the Fortress itself?

[Jules]

You may be right about FFG. I'm not sure.

We know that PI was in the room with all the statues where you fight Vhailor or Ignus (the Trial of Impulse). He left a sounding stone there. However, since he knew the crystal was a trap, he probably didn't touch it (he certainly warned his companions against touching it). As for whether PI ever got out of the statue room, it's uncertain. There's no way YOU can escape it, except for by touching the crystal trap, but that doesn't mean that he couldn't figure out a way. Your incarnation doesn't know how to create those neat sounding-stone enchantments either .

[Fenix]

Yes, in the sounding stone, I'm guessing he does know it's a trap, but he does say he's going to inspect it, so it's quite possible he does get trapped.

Furthermore, when you chat with him, he tells you that everyone is trapped in that room, and the only way out, he knows. But after you merge with him, you learn that he didn't know how to escape the trap, he was lying.

[Jules]

Yes, but the four incarnations (you, Paranoid, Practical, and Good) aren't in the Maze of Reflections because Good went to the fortress, got trapped, waited 1000 years until Practical arrived, who waited five years until Paranoid arrived, who waited 50 years until you arrived. For one thing, if Practical got trapped there, why would any incarnations after him exist? He'd still be around the fortress, and he wouldn't die, so he wouldn't reincarnate as you or Paranoid or anyone else. Rather, the memories, personalities, and abilities of the previous incarnations are buried in your own mind as repressed/inaccessible memories. The crystal trap brings three of your incarnations to the surface, and makes them incarnate within the crystal maze. It's plausible that in your buried memories as the practical incarnnation, you had read enough arcane lore that you knew not only how to recognize the crystal trap (which the practical incarnation certainly did, since he mentions it in the sounding stone), but how to escape it, even if the practical incarnation wasn't foolish enough to touch it himself. As it turns out, though, this isn't the case: the PI, or at least your memories from the PI, did NOT know how to get out of the crystal.

It's not certain how Practical really died. Possible the Transcendent One floated over to him with a bunch of shadows, killed him, and teleported him to the mortuary so that TNO could live again. That's the simplest explanation.

[Fenix]

Meh, you're likely right, it's been a while since I've played.

How'd you know how long the incarnations had been waiting?

[Jules]

My main point is that they haven't been waiting that long: they all emerged (except for your incarnation) from you.

However, as for their ages, I have no idea how long ago the Good (first) incarnation was, but the Paranoid Incarnation came after the Practical Incarnation, and he was active 50 years ago (talk to Aelwyn about it), so the Practical Incarnation was probably 50+ years ago. I think the Practical Incarnation probably lived a very long time: by the time you get to Vhailor, after all, his body has crumbled to dust, without even a skeleton inside the armor, so maybe Practical lived from 200 years before the game to 50 years before the game or so. I also think the Paranoid Incarnation followed the Practical Incarnation fairly closely. Possibly he was the very next incarnation, possibly there was a short lived incarnation or two between them.

The one contraindication is that Iannis claims to have lost Deionarra only a few years ago, which would seem to show the Practical Incarnation as having died only a few years ago. Iannis is something of an exception though.

[TinSaladin]

Stonger minds, Stronger lives

I think the reason that THESE incarnations figure so prominantly in your life isnt because they survived for longer or that they were somehow linked specially to your charactor (except for the original incarnation) but rather these incarnations have evolved multiple times, isnt an incarnation that has resurfaced all the memories of the practical incarnation the same as the original practical incarnation, if the paranoid incarnation constantly wakes up and finds that someone else has been living his life, well, that explains why hes laying traps, so the other incarnations keep dying until he resurfaces and is able to avoid the traps.

I think, in my own pretenscious way, that TNOs mind was healing itself across the incarnations, until your personality takes dominance and is able to pull itself together over the coarse of many deaths. The other "Strong" incarnations, the paranoid and practical, were personalities that were able to take advantage of TNOs mind multiple times, allowing them to act after their own deaths.
Thats how the practical incarnation was able to act before and after the Paranoid incarnations time and why the practical incarnation is so obsessed with laying traps for himself, so that the other incarnations will die and he can be reborn.

Thats also why those two personalities meet you in the crystal prison, when the prison opens up your mind, it lets all the personalities into itself, the original, the two personalities that could resurface over multiple incarnations and your own personality, all of which were inside the same mind