The streets around the Mortuary, home to Sigil's unclean, seem crowded with cheap taverns and boarding houses. Many of the area's poor earn a little extra jink by bringing corpses to the Dustmen. These Collectors, as they're called, get paid a pittance for each body they bring back; several small groups regularly patrol the Hive and Ditch, where people die in droves every day.
The Mortuary sits between Blackshade Lane and Ragpickers Square in a dismal part of the Hive. The whole area immediately around it feels somber and shadowy: perfect for the colorless Dustmen. The foreboding structure resembles a low, menacing dome, with cluster of windowless vaults jumbled around it. Spiky black buttresses radiate from its center. Though nearly 250 Dustmen can live there in reasonable comfort, the Mortuary normally houses only 50 to 200, making it one of the most sparsely populated faction headquarters offering housing at all. Many areas stand empty for hours at a time; how- ever, the faction offices in a tower remain very busy during the day, and the sleeping Dead fill the dormitories at night.
The Mortuary holds quite a few portals - an important feature, since the Dustmen pre- pare corpses (through mummification, embalming, etc.) and dispatch them to cemeteries on other planes or send them to the Elemental Plane of Fire for cremation. Without the Dead, there'd be no room for the living in Sigil!
Bashers approaching the Mortuary for a funeral first spy an open-air monument or public memorial. For a fee, the Dustmen'II add the names of lost cutters to this Roll of the Dead. Folks have been filling the memorial with tiny carved names for centuries.
Passing through the front gate and climbing the main steps leads visitors to the Great Hall. Important guests or funeral parties are received here. (The bodies themselves are delivered through the lesser gate at the back of the building. - Ed.} This spotless hall's reserved for ceremonial use only. Five Dustmen stand guard here all day (only two at night) and also act as guides for any visitors with business elsewhere in the building.
A basher won't get far without noticing the hordes of undead roaming the Mortuary. Free-willed undead such as wights, wraiths, and more powerful specimens usually avoid public areas. Lesser undead like skeletons and zombies serve the faction as laborers. Blame them for the anti- septic smell of the place - seems the Dead like things surprisingly clean. Yet no amount of scrubbing can remove the dusty smell age has lent the Mortuary, nor its underlying odor of decay.
Funeral groups pass from the Great Hall through a central chamber (reserved for Dustman gatherings) to view the departed in Memorial Hall or an antechamber. The party then moves into one of the half-dozen or so interment chambers ringing the perimeter of the main floor. A chill rises from the black flagstones of these dim, quiet rooms. Portals here lead to prominent prime worlds and to sites in the neutral Outer Planes: Arcadia, Mechanus, Acheron, Limbo, Ysgard, and Pandemonium.
In addition to the guards in the Great Hall, six Dust- men stand duty in a guard room near a Dustmen-only area on the main floor. A records room here stores information on interments and faction membership. It opens onto a library, whose hundreds of books and scrolls concern un- dead, philosophies of death, burial practices, lists of grave sites, and necromantic magic. At the far end of the Mortuary (also accessible only to faction members) lie the kitchen, refectory, a common room, and Dustman dormitories (each with 1d20 Dead). Right upstairs are more dormitories and common rooms.
The Dead perform most of their work in the central portion of the upper floor. In one room they receive, inventory, and sort corpses before sending them to the adjacent embalmer's chamber. Also nearby are two chambers where the Dead prepare bodies for burial. (One contains a portal from the Prison; the efficient Mercykillers send dead prisoners straight to the Mortuary. - Ed.} Several special interment chambers on this level hold portals to the Upper and Lower Planes.
In one wing lies a council chamber, where the factol's secretary conducts meetings. Dark paneling covers its walls, interrupted by a massive copper Dustman symbol. The table of deep mahogany dominating the chamber has a secret lever that opens a trap door to the faction records room below.
Also in this wing waits the faction armory, which can equip some 100 Dead. (The faction can also equip members from its ma.in armories in the Mortuary's catacombs, heavily guarded by undead. From there, a body can wander clear to the necropoli and crypts the Dead maintain beneath the Cage. The Mortuary's catacombs also are said to hide countless portals, especially to the realms of the powers of death. - Ed.}
Adjoining the armory is Secretary Trevant's office. This lavishly appointed chamber brings to mind a coffin - its polished wood is accented by brass fixtures and soft fabric drapes. During the day, Komosahl Trevant - Skall's appointment secretary and second-in-command - works here with two high-level bodyguards. Trevant handles daily business and Sigil matters, allowing Skall time for long-range planning and facto! meetings.
The headquarters of the Dustmen faction is also the place where all of Sigil’s dead – except, perhaps, for a few Golden Lords – come to be interred. Bands of collectors roam the streets of the Hive looking for corpses, or meet bands of Hardheads at the edges of the Hive waiting to pick up the day’s load to take to the Mortuary. Only the Dead and those who make their living off of the dead come to the Mortuary willingly. The Mortuary itself has a few public areas, restricted to the lower floor of the Mortuary which is where visitors may come to mourn the dead. The rest of the Mortuary is kept secret, and rumors fly around the Cage of foul necromancy and evil experiments being done with the corpses of the dead.